


Some Debts Cannot Be Paid

by Antarctica_or_bust



Series: To Rewrite History [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Angst, Assassination, Betrayal, Blackmail, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes-centric, Canon-Typical Violence, Captured by HYDRA, Child Soldiers, Deals With The Devil, Depressing, Double Agents, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Friendship, Good Men Doing Bad Things, Gun Violence, Human Experimentation, Imprisonment, Kid Fic, M/M, Missing Scene, Missions, Nothing too graphic but could be triggering, Pining, Plans, Protective Bucky Barnes, Psychological Trauma, Rescue Missions, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Serious Injuries, Suicide Attempt, Torture, Trauma, Unrequited Love, Violence, We'll get to that eventually, You know the usual Hydra stuff, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6738685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antarctica_or_bust/pseuds/Antarctica_or_bust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes will do anything to save Steve Rogers.  After he falls from Zola's train, Hydra puts this to the test.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I was hoping to have this series finished before Civil War came out. I don't think I'm going to make it, but at least my writer's block for this fic is finally gone. This is also currently un-betaed, though I plan to get to it, and I'm adding tags as I go.

Bucky takes a deep breath before rushing forward, swiping the shield off the floor and firing his pistol at Hydra's war machine. The sergeant moves on instinct, his need to protect Steve far stronger than the fear. Captain America may be a hero but he isn't bulletproof and it's always been Bucky's job to watch his best friend's back.  
  
Whether down an alley in Brooklyn or on a train high in the mountains, he'll be there to hold the line. It's what the sniper does and he can't regret his choices even though he knows that he'll probably die this time. Steve is worth it; Steve has always been worth it and Bucky would die for him ten times over without a second thought. His life for Captain America's is not a trade he feels like making but his life for that of his best friend is a price fair paid.  
  
The sergeant is living on borrowed time already, has been ever since Steve rescued him from Hydra, and sometimes he wonders if he actually made it out.  
  
Maybe Bucky is still strapped to that table and his time with the Howling Commandos has been one long hallucination, a fever dream brought on by the mess of drugs running through his veins. His captors had been far too fond of needles and this would hardly be the first time he’d seen things that weren't there.  
  
But the sniper could never have dreamed up Captain America – in his hallucinations Steve was always sick and skinny instead of this massive stranger who wears his best friend's face. Captain America, Hydra, the Red Skull; these last few years have been far too strange to be anything but truth.  
  
Bucky certainly hurts like it's real when Hydra's soldier shoots him, a bright blue blast slamming into his shield like a hammer strike. Without the shield, the sergeant would have been vaporized in an instant, and even with it, the force of the impact throws him backwards through the air.  
  
An earlier shot had blown the side of the train wide open and Bucky clips the edge of the hole, jagged metal slicing through his arm. Six inches to the left and the sniper would have been fine; six inches and he would have had nothing but bruises and another damn good war story to tell the dames back home. But the sergeant's luck has been shitty ever since he enlisted – his brief sojourn at Steve's side notwithstanding – and those six inches of open air are six he cannot cross.  
  
The wind screams in Bucky's ears as he tumbles out of the train, Steve's shield ripped from his hands. For a moment the sniper can't see anything but a sea of snow and ice stretching far below him, his stomach twisting sharp with vertigo. But then his flailing hand catches metal, Bucky's arm nearly jerking from the socket as instinct stops his fall.  
  
When the world settles, he's hanging off the side of the train, every spin of the wheels threatening to knock him loose. The train has picked up speed since the Commandos boarded, jagged crags streaming by in a blur of black and white, and the sergeant doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to hold on.  
  
“Bucky!”  
  
He looks up to see Steve crouched on the edge of the train car, his eyes locked on Bucky as he tries to reach his friend. The other man isn't watching his own rear worth a damn and the sniper really hopes that Hydra doesn't have any more aces up its sleeve because he can't help Steve like this. Bucky needs to get back on board right now.  
  
But he can't pull himself up – with one arm injured, he doesn't have the strength – and he's too far away for Steve to reach. The other man leans forward as far as he can and Bucky tries to grab him, but their fingers miss by more than inches even as the sergeant's handhold groans. He only has a few more seconds before he plummets toward the icy river far below and he sees this same realization wash over Stevie's face. Horror and then determination, the stubborn set to his best friend's jaw more terrifying than his looming death could ever be.  
  
Because the blond is going to do something stupid; he’s going to try and lunge for Bucky even though he's bound to fall. Steve is going to die trying to save Bucky and the sniper can’t be a part of that.  
  
So he focuses his gaze on the other man’s face and attempts to block out the world around them, tries to pretend that they're back in Brooklyn where they belong. Back when both of them were happy, or at least not broken, and Bucky's biggest fear was Steve finding out the truth. The war didn't exist then; Captain America didn't exist then, and Stevie was more likely to come home with bruises than with bullets in his skin.  
  
 _Damn Erskine all to Hell,_ Bucky thinks, repeating a curse that he's said many times before. _Damn Erskine for enabling your fucking self-sacrificing tendencies and your need to save the world. You better watch your own back once I'm gone._  
  
Then the sergeant closes his eyes and lets go, the wind almost managing to drown out his captain's anguished scream.

 


	2. To Bleed

Pain. Pain and cold and a sharp spike of regret. He makes a noise then, a half choking moan that echoes strangely in his ears, and seconds later there's the soft prick of a needle in his neck. He tries to shift away but moving threatens to send him spiraling down in a sea of agony.  
  
Yet whatever he was given is making the pain fade away, the world coming back into focus one breath at a time. He can hear people talking, though he doesn't understand the language; he can feel something hard and cold against his back and the smell of antiseptic is thick inside his throat. This place smells like a hospital or a laboratory, the sergeant struck with a sudden fear that he's back in Zola's hands again.  
  
Bucky's eyes slam open and he tries to jerk upright, his efforts stymied by the restraints across his chest. Thick and heavy, they don't even shift as he pulls against them and when he tries to bend his legs for leverage, he discovers that his feet are bound as well. Now his struggles turn to panic, the sergeant squinting against the harsh lights as he scrabbles for anything that might cut him free.  
  
“Stop!” a white-coated man shouts as he runs to Bucky’s side. “You will aggravate your wounds.”  
  
His English is rough but understandable, the sniper too out of it to place the accent now. He doesn’t care where he is, he just wants _out_ , Bucky’s panic revving up another notch when the man places a hand on his chest to hold him down.  
  
This is his nightmares come to life. This is Hydra’s scientists laughing while he writhes and burns before them, his pain just another number in their eyes.  
  
But panic can’t sustain him forever and eventually his fear-born strength gives out. Bucky slumps back against the metal, the white-clad man removing his hand once the sniper stops struggling.  
  
“Good. You will listen, yes?” the man says. “I am Anastas Grebenshchikov but you will call me Doctor or Sir. You were found in the mountains and brought here to the Red Room for study. You and your captain. We thought you dead but you began to breathe once we thawed the ice.”  
  
“My captain?!” Bucky asks sharply, his heart beating faster in his chest. There shouldn’t have been anyone else in the mountains with him, not unless Steve…  
  
_Maybe it's someone else. Maybe Steve knocked one of Hydra’s people from the train before I fell,_ the sergeant rationalizes, the words sounding desperate even in his head. Steve was supposed to be safe; he was supposed to survive and marry Peggy and be happy – he wasn't supposed to follow Bucky into death instead.  
  
But it seems that’s exactly what he did and the sniper’s hopes are dashed when the doctor speaks again.  
  
“Yes, of course, Captain America. The war ended but we remember him. We were searching for his corpse and you should be grateful that we found you first. Indeed, you are both fascinating subjects but we have been forced to keep the captain frozen; his panics are destructive and our equipment delicate. I hope that you will be more helpful – the General is becoming impatient and we must have results quite soon. Otherwise you and your captain will be terminated; such a waste of two fine experiments.”  
  
“Terminated?” Bucky repeats in shock. He still can’t place the doctor’s accent but it’s painfully clear that he and Steve weren’t found by allies, not when Grebenshchikov is talking so casually about killing both of them.  
  
However, as much as the sergeant wants to find his friend and run, he can’t afford to let those instincts guide him. Bucky is injured – the pain may have gone away, but what he can see of his own body is wrapped in bandages – and he wouldn’t have the strength to carry Steve right now. Pre-serum, sure, but the new Steve is solid muscle and almost twice his weight. He'd need to be in perfect health to even have a chance.  
  
Besides, if this Grebenshchikov is smart, there are half a dozen guards standing outside the door, ready and waiting to put a bullet in his head if he so much as bends a finger wrong. The sniper will have to cooperate until he knows more about the situation; lull his captors into complacency before he makes his move. Bucky’s not leaving without Steve, that much is certain, and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep his friend alive.  
  
“I’m not a scientist. How can I help?” the sergeant asks, doing his best to keep the horror out of his voice. His efforts aren’t entirely successful but Grebenshchikov doesn’t seem to notice any more than Zola did – or perhaps he simply does not care.  
  
“You do not need to know the details. You must only cooperate,” the doctor tells him flatly. “Our experiments will work better on a conscious subject and you will be rewarded in equal measure to our success.”  
  
This answer isn't very comforting, Grebenshchikov’s explanation sounding far too close to what he faced in Zola’s hands. But Bucky has no other options so he just nods his head.  
  
“Wonderful. Then we will begin immediately.”  
  
The scientist disappears from view for a second and then reappears with a needle, the sergeant flinching when Grebenshchikov jams the point into his arm. His vision turns fuzzy almost immediately, the world swimming strangely before his eyes. But Bucky remains conscious even as his body freezes, the sniper unable to protest when the doctor starts to wheel him from the room.  
  
He can only stare blankly at the ceiling and watch the lights blur past. The sergeant loses time with every blink, moving from the hallway to an elevator to a massive laboratory in what seems like seconds to his mind.  
  
“Say hello to your captain,” Grebenshchikov says, turning Bucky's head to the left with one icy hand. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus but when they do, his heart jumps painfully. His muscles strain with the need to touch and feel and prove that Steve’s still breathing, but all he manages is one broken gasp.  
  
Because Steve is there, the other man hooked up to more equipment than Bucky has ever seen. Wires and tubes seem to writhe inside his skin, the haze in the sergeant’s vision turning the image nightmarish. But he can’t bring himself to blink for fear that he’s staring at a corpse and the only thing worse than being trapped here with Steve would be knowing that he’s the reason his best friend died in agony.  
  
“Quite a sight, yes?” Grebenshchikov asks, the words barely registering as Bucky wills Steve’s chest to move. “Dr. Erskine was a genius – a traitor, but a genius – and your captain truly is fascinating. The serum in his blood is a triumph of science over flesh and I am most pleased that you decided to assist us. It would have been tragic to dissect such a specimen before we discover Erskine’s secrets for ourselves.  
  
“Now this will probably be painful,” the doctor continues, feeding another set of tubing into Bucky’s arm. “Our other subjects died too soon after injection to describe the process, but their expressions spoke quite eloquently of their suffering. It seems your captain’s blood is extremely poisonous in larger doses. However, your early tests were promising and I do hope that you survive. Doctor Zola spoke most highly of your endurance when he suggested that we wake you and it would be such a pity to lose his most promising specimen”  
  
Grebenshchikov barks something in another language and the equipment around Steve whirs to sudden life. The whole set up shivers and shakes, Bucky watching in horror as the tubing around the other man turns red. The scientist is draining him, bleeding him like a pig for slaughter, and the sergeant has to close his eyes when nausea washes over him.  
  
Nausea and then a growing pressure, his skin seeming to grow tighter inch by inch. He’s suffocating, choking, the air gone cold as ice inside his lungs. Then there’s a click and the ice turns to heat, the entire room vibrating with a sudden blinding light.  
  
Bucky can see it through his eyelids but that shining agony is nothing compared to the fire in his veins. He twists and writhes as lightning crawls through his body, scorching every cell from the inside out. Someone is screaming. _Bucky_ is screaming, the sound ricocheting off the walls and stabbing through his brain. But the light just gets brighter and brighter, the fire burning hotter and hotter until there’s nothing left but pain.


	3. To Fight

“You should have fought them, Bucky. I would have fought them.”  
  
“And you would have died. You never had one lick of self-preservation in that thick skull of yours. That’s why you needed me,” Bucky retorts, opening his eyes to see Steve frowning down at him. “You always jumped in headfirst even when outnumbered and becoming Captain America only made it worse. I swear you think that outfit’s bulletproof. I wish you’d stayed back in Brooklyn; I wish you’d let me protect you like I was trying to.”  
  
“But you didn’t protect me, did you?” the blond snarls viciously. “You dragged me to Hell down with you like I always knew you would.”  
  
“No… I…”  
  
“You were selfish, Buck. You couldn’t stand to see me rise without you; you couldn’t stand to see me great. I was supposed to live my whole life in your shadow and it killed you when that changed.”  
  
“No. You’ve got it all wrong, Stevie. All I ever wanted was for us to stand together. I just had to keep you safe. You were always aces but you could never see it and I hated to hear you talking bad about yourself. Christ's sake, don’t you know that you’re the only person I ever wanted to come home to? You were my world, Stevie, and then Captain America had to go and ruin it. Suddenly you were going where I couldn’t follow. But I tried, Steve. You have to know I tried.”  
  
“Sorry, Buck. Captain America doesn’t need a sidekick. Captain America is a symbol of all that’s virtuous and you just don’t measure up. You’re weak, frightened, and _depraved,_ and whatever these people do to you will be no more than you deserve. You should have died on Zola’s table before you killed Steve Rogers with your cowardice.”  
  
Captain America smiles then – a cold, unfeeling smile – and Bucky knows the man is right. His friend is dead; Steve Rogers died the moment that he agreed to Erskine’s serum, hollowed out into a caricature of goodness instead of the man that he had been.  
  
Captain America doesn’t swear; Captain America doesn’t get into fistfights at the theater. Captain America doesn’t need a friend like Bucky anymore. But that doesn’t stop his heart from lurching when the blond starts to walk away.  
  
“Steve!” Bucky shouts. “Steve, wait!”  
  
He scrambles forward, reaching out to grab the captain’s shoulder, to beg and plead and promise that he doesn’t mean a word a said. Promise that he’ll do anything if Stevie will just agree to stay.  
  
But Bucky’s hand touches nothing but empty air and suddenly he’s falling, the sniper landing hard on a cold vinyl floor. When he looks up, Steve is gone and while Bucky hasn’t dreamed that vividly in years, he’s increasingly sure that the other man was never there at all.  
  
Because the sergeant is back in Grebenshchikov’s laboratory, the room nearly identical to his hazy drugged up memories. Still enormous, still blinding metal and barren walls, but where Steve's gurney had been there’s only an empty space instead. For a second Bucky cannot breathe; he's terrified that these people actually killed his captain, drained his best friend dry for their sick experiments.  
  
 _I am going to kill them. I am going to kill them all,_ the sniper thinks, a wave of fury washing his fear away. Bucky may have fucked up and gotten his best friend captured, but no one hurts Steve while he’s around. These bastards are going to discover that there are consequences to their actions and a little more blood on the sergeant’s hands won’t make a difference now. _Let them see what kind of monster I can be, Stevie, without Captain America around._  
  
Bucky pushes himself to his feet, eyes searching the room for a weapon that will give him a fighting chance. His balance feels a little different than he’s used to but the sniper doesn’t pay it much attention, not until he puts out a hand to brace himself and finds only air instead.  
  
His hip slams into the table, denting the metal with an alarming crack. But Bucky barely notices as he catches himself on his elbows, all his attention focused on the space where his left hand used to be. He’s missing most of his forearm; a puckered mass of scar tissue starting just below his elbow as though the bone was sliced clean through.  
  
Bucky must have lost it when he fell but he can still feel his fingers twitching. He can feel his hand quite clearly even though it isn't there.  
  
 _Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!_ the sergeant curses a bit hysterically. How is he supposed to fight with such a disadvantage? How is he supposed to avenge his captain now?  
  
These questions threaten to send him spiraling down into panic, but Bucky manages to get control before he hits the edge. He forces himself to breathe slow and steady, calming his heart rate until the shock begins to fade. For Steve he'll find a way. Even if the sniper has to rip Grebenshchikov's throat out with his teeth, the scientist will pay. Because being unarmed doesn't mean that Bucky isn't dangerous, more than one of Zola's men learned that to their regret.  
  
The sergeant has just managed to calm himself down when a door in the far wall slides open and it takes all his self control to keep from snarling when a new scientist walks through.  
  
“A pity about the arm, Soldier,” the man says, staring down at a folder in his hands. “We hoped that Erskine’s serum would induce regeneration but the formula was too diluted within your captain’s blood. Still, you should be proud. You did not die screaming like the rest.”  
  
Bucky's hand tightens into a fist as the scientist keeps walking closer. The other man is completely oblivious to the danger that he's in. Maybe he thinks that the sergeant is too weak to hurt him but Bucky feels better now than he has since Azzano and even if he were dying, he'd find strength enough for this.  
  
As soon as the doctor is in reach, Bucky lunges forward, wrapping his right hand around the bastard's throat. The sniper knocks the other man off his feet and uses his momentum to lift him high into the air. Then Bucky slams the scientist down again, his head hitting the tile with a sickening crack. He goes limp almost instantly and the sergeant knows that he is either dead or dying now.  
  
So he searches the other man quickly, finding no weapons but the clipboard and an odd rectangle on a string around his neck. Perhaps the sniper should feel guilty about murdering an unarmed stranger but as Bucky collects his prizes, all he feels is a cold sense of purpose running through his veins.  
  
If his captors wanted mercy, they should have left Steve alone. But now they've killed his conscience and it seems only fair for the sergeant to kill them in return.  
  
Bucky sprints to the door, not wasting any time in case someone comes looking for the poor fool on the floor. He darts through the opening just as the door slides shut with a sharp click and he bounces off the opposite wall with a grunt. The sergeant had forgotten about his missing hand again.  
  
But he recovers quickly, looking around for clues on where to go. He needs to find Grebenshchikov before his captors run him down; if he kills just one more person, it should be that scientist.  
  
However, Bucky has barely rounded the corner when he spies a dozen soldiers marching toward him, large rifles in their hands. While the sniper doesn't recognize the weapons - _some new kind of Hydra tech?_ – he recognizes danger and skids to a wary halt. But he's trapped, another six men coming up behind him, and Bucky refuses to go down without a fight.  
  
So he throws his scavenged clipboard at the closest soldier, the metal bouncing off his helmet with a clang. This move buys the sergeant half a second and he rushes forward while his captors are still gaping, crossing the floor in two long strides. Thankfully these men are badly trained, or maybe Bucky has just gotten faster, and he tears the gun out of the first soldier's hands before the man fires off a shot. The sniper has definitely gotten stronger because when he hits his enemy, the soldier goes down and he doesn't get back up.  
  
Bucky has already moved on, slamming the butt of his stolen weapon into the next man's gut and then flipping it around. The rifle may be strange but it has a trigger and a shot at point blank range paints the white walls red with blood.  
  
A handful of bullets whiz past his ear as his enemies finally start shooting back. Bucky drops to the floor in a crouch, shooting out the kneecaps of two men across the hall before he's forced to move. He dives behind another soldier, using his body as a shield even as he takes out the man's companions one by one. Everything feels like it's moving in slow motion and the sniper isn't inclined to question his good fortune when it means that he may actually win this fight.  
  
“Stop!” someone shouts. The command is followed by a stream of what sounds like Russian and then lightning slams into Bucky's back. He drops, twitching, as his entire body spasms, his muscles cramping out of his control.  
  
“Your viciousness is impressive, Soldier. However, I prefer my men alive.”  
  
The words don't register at first, nothing but white noise through the buzzing in his ears. But then some primal piece of Bucky's brain thinks, _Grebenshchikov_ , and a surge of rage helps drive the fuzziness away. He turns his head to the side with a groan, forcing his eyes to focus as the surviving soldiers part to let the scientist walk through.  
  
“You promised to cooperate. Do all Americans lack honor or are you a special case?” Grebenshchikov asks levelly. He doesn't seem to notice the blood beneath his shoes and Bucky draws his lips back in a snarl when he realizes that the other man is taking notes.  
  
“That was before you killed Steve,” the sniper growls as he struggles to his feet, his muscles still not working properly.  
  
“Is that the reason for this rampage? Such emotion does not befit a soldier, though some might commend your loyalty,” Grebenshchikov says with a sneer. “However, you are mistaken. I would not destroy a specimen such as Captain America without cause. You are not a match for Erskine's masterpiece even with his serum in your blood.”  
  
“Steve's alive?!” Bucky asks, his rage forgotten instantly. “Where is he?”  
  
“Come quietly and I will show you,” the doctor replies. “We will forget this unfortunate incident if you follow orders now. However, if you continue to fight against us, I will put a bullet in your precious captain's skull.”  
  
What can Bucky do but agree? Steve has always been his greatest weakness and now his captors know it; they know exactly where to twist the screws to make him jump. The sniper doesn't think Grebenshchikov would actually kill Steve, not with the way that the doctor talks about him, but he can't risk that possibility.  
  
So Bucky drops his stolen rifle and holds up empty hands in surrender, letting his captors twist his arms behind his back. Then Grebenshchikov barks a command and the soldiers start marching forward down the hall.  
  
 _Definitely Russian,_ the sniper thinks as the scientist talks quietly with the man walking at his side. _That has to be the accent. Just like those brass who tried to tell us how to fight. And I suppose that makes sense with the mouthful of a name. But the Russians were our allies; why didn't someone send word of me and Steve back home? Unless Hydra had branches that we never knew about._  
  
That seems like the most obvious answer. Some forgotten Hydra outpost still fighting for the Red Skull's perfect world. Which, if true, makes Grebenshchikov and his goons even more dangerous than he'd thought; fanatics are always more creative than their prosaic counterparts and fanatical scientists are the most sadistic men of all.  
  
Bucky's captors march him deeper into the facility, the sergeant mapping each turn inside his mind. He's good with directions, always has been, and he's confident that he can retrace his steps when Grebenshchikov comes to a halt in front of a large metal door. While the sniper still doesn't know where the hell to find an exit, he'll take any information that he can get right now.  
  
However, Bucky forgets about everything but Steve when Grebenshchikov presses his hand to a glowing panel on the wall. The door slides open with a hiss and the sniper lurches forward only to be brought up short by the tight grip on his arms.  
  
He pulls against the soldiers' hands, his promise to cooperate forgotten at the sight of his best friend held captive. The other man is frozen in some sort of glass tube, an enormous cylinder painted white with frost. Steve looks dead, like a fucking blue-lipped corpse, and a strangled cry rips out of Bucky's throat. He struggles harder, his captors' feet sliding across the floor until Grebenshchikov waves his hand and the sergeant is released. Bucky doesn't question his good fortune. He just runs to Steve, slamming his hand against the barrier that dares keep apart.  
  
“Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead,” the sniper murmurs over and over. He doesn't realize that he's whispering aloud until his breath fogs up the glass and when he stops, the mist on the inside of Steve's prison doesn't disappear.  
  
The other man is breathing – very, very slowly but he's breathing – and the sergeant nearly collapses with relief. There's no point in hiding how much he cares when he's already made his weakness obvious and Bucky doesn't know when he'll see Steve again. So he leans his head against the glass, pressing as close to his captain as he can.  
  
 _I promise, Stevie. I'm gonna get you outta here._

 


	4. To Plead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally saw Civil War and mostly enjoyed it, though whoever chose the city titles needs to be smacked upside the head. And creepy young Tony is creepy. 
> 
> I've actually mapped out this entire story already so any resemblance to canon in the later chapters is coincidental. There's not much since canon Hydra seems a bit low tech and I've always imagined the Winter Soldier as more of a ghost sniper than a battering ram even when brainwashed. Movie!WS seems pretty sure that punching is the answer to everything. Although, I suppose that does make him refreshingly straightforward. Every other villain tends to go for implausibly complicated schemes.
> 
> Also, previews are lying liars. Just saying.

“Enough, Soldier. You may stop.”  
  
Bucky throws one last punch before halting, his arms hanging limply at his side. He knows the procedure by now so he stands motionless until his captors have removed all of their wires and electrodes from his skin. Only then does the sniper turn around and look at Grebenshchikov expectantly. The Russian stopped him early this time – Bucky is barely breathing hard – and a change in routine usually means some new experiment.  
  
Grebenshchikov loves routine; if the sergeant were allowed a watch, he could have set it by the doctor and still kept perfect time. Because his captor wakes him at the same hour every morning – discounting the three miserable weeks when the Russian decided to test his reflexes under severe sleep deprivation – and most of his days follow the exact same pattern afterwards.  
  
Wake up, eat, shower, lab, shower, study, sleep...  
  
As prisons go, this one has been survivable. The food is no worse than the SSR's war rations and for the most part, Grebenshchikov has avoided outright torture in his experiments. He seems to consider the sergeant a valuable asset if not an actual person, one to be pushed to its limits but not broken without cause.  
  
However, a slightly better cell is still a jail cell and Bucky hasn't stopped trying to find a weakness in his captors' guard. He studies Grebenshchikov even as the Russian studies him and the man has proved to be Hydra through and through. He talks of a better world while putting the sniper through his paces, a world ruled by peace and order, and he never seems to notice his own hypocrisy. Because for all his rhetoric, the doctor's experiments are designed to create the perfect soldier and he treats Bucky as a flawed prototype that must be improved.  
  
Indeed, the sergeant's body isn't the only thing being tested by his captors; Grebenshchikov has been studying his every thought as well.  
  
Bucky's afternoons are filled with lessons on tactics, technology, and languages – Russian first and foremost – and while the sniper was never much for schooling when he was younger, he learns much faster now. His captors hook up electrodes to his skin and ramble on about brain waves, enhanced recall, and improved sensory perception before devolving into rapid-fire Russian too complicated for Bucky to understand.  
  
The sergeant doesn't actually care about the details – what he can do matters far more to him than why – and he's determined to learn as much as possible. While Bucky isn't stupid enough to trust the slant of the Red Room's information, facts are facts and the world has grown much different since he fell.  
  
Truthfully, the sergeant didn't believe it when Grebenshchikov said that he and Steve had been frozen for eighteen years. How could it be 1963 when the blond doesn't look like he's aged a day since that last mission? And while Bucky hasn't seen a mirror since getting captured, he does not feel forty-five. After six months of Hydra's experiments and training, the sniper is in better shape than he's ever been before.  
  
However, the Russian was convincing, laying out nearly two decades of global history without missing a beat. New technology, new countries, new rhetoric and wars; for all the differences that Grebenshchikov described, people were apparently still greedy, violent bastards and on one level Bucky can understand Hydra's larger goal. But he'd seen the inside of the Red Skull's prisons and he'd seen the camps where Hitler sent his Jews away to die, and stopping such evil was worth the blood they'd spilled.  
  
“Soldier!” Grebenshchikov shouts and Bucky snaps to attention; the doctor must have realized that he wasn't listening.  
  
“It is time to fix your arm,” the other man continues. “Our experiments have been promising but the General requires more. Until we successfully refine the serum for use on other subjects or convince your captain to comply, you must do Hydra's work yourself.”  
  
The mention of Steve makes Bucky twitch but he bites his tongue instead of warning off the scientist like he really wants to do. Because the sergeant is no closer to an answer, no closer to freeing Stevie from this prison, and he can't afford to piss his captors off right now. The Russian has treated him well enough so far, but he's made it painfully clear that one wrong move will bring out the torture chambers and Bucky can't risk Steve getting hurt because of him.  
  
Grebenshchikov lets the sniper visit once a week with supervision, his best friend still frozen in that awful icy tube. Bucky hates to see him there; Steve never liked the cold and his blue-tinged lips bring back bad memories. But the door lock is biometric – that was lesson number five – and even if the sergeant somehow got it open, he has no idea how to wake Steve up again.  
  
 _One step at a time,_ Bucky reminds himself firmly, shoving down a creeping thread of helplessness. Reconnaissance can be just as important as firepower, particularly when he's outnumbered and outgunned.  
  
“I think my arm is pretty fucked, Doctor,” the sergeant says instead of screaming. “The new tech you've shown me is impressive but my hand ain't growing back. Not unless you have some magic drug hidden up your sleeve.”  
  
“Of course not. If I had a drug like that, you would not be breathing and you know it. Do not play the fool with me,” Grebenshchikov replies flatly. “Erskine's serum releases the full potential of a subject's genome – that is why your transformation was much less dramatic than your captain's. When it works, speed, strength, intelligence, and even healing are increased to extreme levels. But the human body has limits that cannot be surpassed and there is no drug to do what your cells cannot. The solution to your problem must be technological instead. Now come with me.”  
  
The Russian spins on his heel and Bucky follows him out of the laboratory, half a dozen soldiers trailing the sergeant down the hall. He's always guarded these days and while he could probably take them without too much trouble, the implied threat stops him anyway.  
  
Bucky will never be free as long as the Red Room still has Steve to use as leverage. But maybe this new arm of Hydra's will be exactly what he needs.  
  
Grebenshchikov leads the sniper to a room that he's never seen before, one swarming with doctors and other scientists. It looks more like a hospital than a laboratory and Bucky feels a shiver of misgiving at the sight. But he still sits when the Russian waves him toward a chair, that shiver turning into a roar when the doctors start to strap him down.  
  
“Sir? What's going on?!” Bucky asks, an edge of panic in his voice. By the time he starts to struggle, he's bound too tight to move and his fear grows louder when the straps don't give at all. Whatever this cloth is made of, it was clearly built for him.  
  
“Do not worry, Soldier. When we are finished, you will be a masterpiece,” Grebenshchikov tells the sergeant and his smile is one of the most frightening things that Bucky's ever seen. “I do hope that you survive this; I believe that I might actually miss you if you died. It is unfortunate that anesthetic will not work on you properly.”  
  
The Russian snaps his fingers and another man walks into the sniper's line of sight. He has the shoulders of a butcher and the smile of a sadist but it's the bone saw in his hands that sends Bucky spiraling.  
  
“Don't. Please don't. You can't. _Please!_ ” the sergeant begs, too horrified to care that his captors have broken him so easily. Bucky would have told the Red Room anything but no one asks a question; the scientists just watch him blankly as he twists against his bonds. Bucky begs and pleads but the man keeps walking closer and when the teeth of the saw bite into his shoulder, the sniper screams and screams and screams.

 


	5. To Break

Bucky dreams of pain and darkness. He dreams of Steve again. Sometimes the blond is smiling and sometimes he sneers with hatred, the scorn in his expression slicing through the sergeant's heart.  
  
He wakes up to faceless surgeons with their hands buried in his shoulder, Bucky's screams echoing loudly beneath their cold uncaring eyes. The cutting never stops no matter how he begs them. There's only pain chasing the sergeant down into the darkness until he doesn't know whether he's awake or dreaming and reality is as much a nightmare as the Hell within his mind. Bucky can't breathe beneath the torture; he can't breathe beneath the straps that keep him pinned.  
  
Sometimes he thinks he's dying. Sometimes he hopes he's dying. But no matter how bad it gets, no matter how often he surrenders consciousness, his captors always bring him back again. The sniper wakes up choking, his throat shredded into jagged glass until he has no voice to scream.  
  
 _Should've fought 'em, Stevie. Should have died a man 'cause I'm in Hell anyway._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, I know, but they stop where they stop. I consider this the end of Part 1.


	6. To Bargain

“Congratulations, Soldier. Your recovery has been faster than I expected. You may begin repaying my great kindness very soon.”  
  
“Your kindness?” Bucky rasps, looking up at Grebenshchikov in disbelief. His time with the Russian has been many things, but it was hardly charity. He has paid in blood and pain and suffering and he barely even recognizes his own body anymore.  
  
“I'm supposed to be grateful for this _thing_?” the sergeant asks, waving at the doctor with a shining metal hand. “You cut off my arm, you bastard; why the Hell would I be thankful?”  
  
“We did what was necessary. That is all. I can bring out the screws and thumbtacks if you would like to see real torture or perhaps I should simply carve your captain up for parts? The Red Room has been kind to you, _Soldier_ , and you must remember that we can be cruel instead,” the scientist tells Bucky, cold eyes piercing the sniper through and through. “I have made you into a weapon, perhaps one greater than your captain, and now you must repay my generosity. After all, a better future has many enemies.”  
  
“I'm not gonna kill anyone,” Bucky says. “Not for you.”  
  
His voice doesn't tremble but the words still sound so fucking weak. Indeed, Grebenshchikov's smile just grows more condescending, as though the sergeant were a child acting out.  
  
“Do not worry, Soldier. Your conscience need not fear. You and the Red Room share common enemies.”  
  
Bucky knows the scientist is lying; he's not an idiot. But the sergeant lets himself believe it because he has no other choice. Even if he knew how to wake Steve up, even if he somehow escaped from this damn compound, Bucky still doesn't have a plan for surviving afterward. He has no money, no friends, and no bolt-holes; he's been MIA for two decades and he can't trust the SSR, not after some of the secrets that the Russian has let slip.  
  
So the sergeant bites his tongue and listens when Grebenshchikov lays out his mission two days later. Just a week's surveillance as the doctor tells it, a test of Bucky's skills in their new modern world. In and out and then back to the Red Room, back to his fucking gilded cage.  
  
As long as Steve remains imprisoned, the sniper will return to Hydra; he doesn't see another choice. Hell, Steve's insistence on fighting was the only reason that Bucky didn't take the discharge he was offered after Azzano; the sergeant couldn't let his best friend face the horrors of war without someone he trusted at his back.  
  
 _And look how well that ended up,_ Bucky thinks bitterly. _I'm off to spy on some poor bastard for our worst enemies._  
  
Grebenshchikov never even gives the sergeant a name for his new target – the doctor just calls him 37 – and while the man could well be famous, Bucky doesn't have a clue. His lessons have been focused more on tactics than popular culture and his target looks like an accountant to his eyes.  
  
Sneak, hide, watch, and listen; those are the sniper's orders and he should be able to handle that just fine. He's always been good at blending into crowds.  
  
Not that Hydra actually trusts Bucky to work alone despite his captors hold on him. Grebenshchikov hands the sergeant off to a minder – an enormous grunt who doesn't speak a word. He grabs hold of Bucky's arms, keeping him still as the doctor pulls out a syringe and stabs him in the neck. Within seconds, the world is going black around the edges and the sniper's last sight before he falls unconscious is Grebenshchikov's damn smirk. He's getting really tired of losing time like this.  
  
Bucky wakes up in the back of a van, his head aching and his handler crouching over him. The other man hands the sergeant a bundle of well-worn clothing and then climbs into the front seat to drive them to their goal.  
  
So the sniper shakes out the bundle, looking at his options with a sigh. Bucky isn't sure if he likes the clothing of the future – the Red Room is all fatigues and lab coats like he's still in the army, but these new threads are something else entirely. Shapeless and loose, the sergeant isn't sure what they're even made of and they're certainly nothing like the snazzy clothes he used to wear for going out.  
  
Hideous is probably the best word. Hideous and grey. But maybe that's just the local style here in _Somewhere, Russia_ , and Bucky has to admit there's something to be said for dressing practically.  
  
Once his handler parks the van, the sniper blends in perfectly with the few people on the street and when an icy gust of wind slams into his body, his clothes block the worst of it. The coat may be hideous but Bucky really could have used it during a few cold winters in New York.  
  
The mission itself is as boring as the sergeant had expected. His handler plants him in an apartment with a pair of binoculars and a notebook and he spends the next three days watching his target through the windows of the place next door. If number 37 is a spy then he's not a very good one since he always leaves his curtains open and never once looks up. But Bucky sees no evidence of anything suspicious; the other man spends his days sleeping and watching television, his food delivered by a service every morning so that he doesn't have to leave.  
  
After three days of this, Bucky is going stir crazy, only his training as a sniper stopping him from bouncing off the walls. However, even training doesn't keep him from feeling guilty about spying on a stranger at Grebenshchikov's command. For all he knows, Hydra plans to kill this man and the sniper is 37's only chance of getting out. If he just warns his target now...  
  
 _And what purpose would that serve?_ Bucky thinks with a silent snarl, shoving the idea from his mind. _Boris there would probably shoot me and then we'd both be dead for no damn reason. Watching someone ain't killing them; even Steve can't argue that._  
  
The sergeant is almost relieved when the other man finally leaves his building. Following 37 requires enough concentration to keep his conscience quiet and for the first time in days, Bucky is out from under his handler's watchful eye.  
  
Of course, it's probably a test. There are probably more of Hydra's soldiers watching Bucky's every move. But the sergeant breathes a little freer anyway. No one on the street seems to pay him any notice and he has the feeling that he could just disappear. If not for Steve then Bucky could run away right now...  
  
But what's the point of wishing when no one is listening? It's not as though the sergeant's prayers have ever once come true.  
  
So he does his damn job. He makes note of everyone his target speaks with and what purchases he makes. He practices his Russian while flirting with the shop girls – friendly is always less memorable than silent glowering – and he learns that the cold makes his left shoulder ache down to the bone.  
  
Nothing important happens, not a damn thing, and when his handler packs them in four days later, Bucky isn't sure whether to be worried or relieved.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, chapter 12 has been kicking my ass.


	7. To Weep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get worse

On the sergeant's fourth mission, everything goes straight to Hell.  
  
It's his own fault, really. Bucky should have known better than to get complacent when Hydra was involved. But Grebenshchikov has so far kept his promise: no killing and no threats. Just a few simple reconnaissance missions for the Red Room, watching men and women that the sniper doesn't recognize. Bucky feels guilty every time but if he didn't follow them, some other agent would. Or maybe that's just the lie the sergeant uses so that he can sleep at night.  
  
He tells himself it's worth it. He nods and smiles and pretends that he doesn't hate his captors' guts. He complies because compliance lets him keep searching for a way to get Steve out.  
  
Bucky has made a little progress. He stole the code to his captain's cryo-tube, the one that starts the thawing process and allows him to be removed. However, according to the sergeant's information, Steve won't wake up instantly. It will take the other man at least three days to recover and so Bucky will have to carry Steve on his way out. Carry Steve, fight off Hydra, and somehow make a grand escape.  
  
 _One step at a time,_ the sniper thinks. _One step at a time._  
  
Bucky's mood improves a bit when Grebenshchikov says that his newest mission will take place in France instead of Russia. He wants to see how the rest of the world is doing – news about New York has been slim out here in bumfuck nowhere – and maybe, just maybe, he can make contact with some of his former allies now. The sergeant may not trust the SSR but the French Resistance was quite fond of his captain and Dernier will vouch for him if he's still alive. So Bucky plans to follow his target until he can slip his handler and then conduct his own fast reconnaissance.  
  
Unfortunately, 521 turns out to be much like 37 and for the first four days, the sergeant doesn't see anything but his apartment walls. He can't leave his target unattended – his watch dog never seems to sleep and disabling him isn't worth the consequences that might land on Stevie's head.  
  
By the fifth day, Bucky is chewing on the walls. This is his best shot of contacting an ally and it's slipping through his fingers; who knows when Grebenshchikov will send him out to France again?  
  
The sergeant is antsy enough that he doesn't hesitate to follow when number 521 finally leaves his house, even though it's after midnight and there's no one else around. He just sticks to the shadows and trails his target carefully through the winding streets.  
  
Hydra wants to know where this man is headed so Bucky will get them a location and then briefly disappear. Something to write in his little fucking notebook before he claims he lost his target and heads off on his own. As long as 521 doesn't suddenly turn around, the sergeant should be safe staying out until the morning, hopefully long enough to find an open library and a damn telephone. Hell, he'll break into the library if it comes to that.  
  
Bucky ducks behind a crate when his target glances backward, the man looking around shiftily before darting into an alleyway. The sergeant waits five beats and then he follows, peeking around the corner to see number 521 slip through an unmarked door.  
  
 _All right, time to go,_ Bucky thinks. He has no intention of following his target into his secret meeting; that's a good way to get himself shot by some trigger happy idiot since the metal arm is a little bit conspicuous up close.  
  
So the sergeant pulls out his notebook to jot down the building's address. He considers writing something false and giving 521 a break but then decides that he can't risk it. If Grebenshchikov already knows the truth, telling a lie would tip his hand.  
  
Bucky has just slipped the notebook back into his pocket when he hears footsteps coming up behind him on the street. He spins around to look, crouching back into the shadows warily. Although the sniper doesn't have a weapon, he'll never be unarmed and his leather glove creaks loudly around a metal fist.  
  
The footsteps come closer and closer, a dark shape resolving into someone that Bucky recognizes instantly. It's his handler; Boris is here in the alleyway when he should be back in the apartment waiting for the sniper to return.  
  
“What are you doing here?” the sergeant asks, a flicker of doubt rising in his mind. No one followed him, he's sure of it, and yet here the Russian is. “Is something wrong?”  
  
The other man doesn't answer. He's never spoken a single word to Bucky – even Boris is a nickname – and that does not change now. The Russian just hands him a gun, the first that the sniper has seen outside of training since the Red Room woke him up. The weight is familiar, heavy enough to be fully loaded, and more comforting than it probably should be when he doesn't know what's going on.  
  
As soon as he takes the gun, Boris smiles. It's a sharp, cruel smile, and Bucky raises his weapon, convinced that the other man will try to kill him now.  
  
But the Russian just throws something past him down the alley and then disappears around the corner, leaving Bucky gaping after him in shock.  
  
 _What the Hell was that about?_ the sniper wonders before turning to look for the object that his handler threw. There's only a single flickering street light in the middle of the alley and his eyes struggle to make out any details in the gloom. But when the sergeant squints and takes a few steps forward, he sees a small sphere lying by the door that 521 had gone through.  
  
 _Shit! That's a grenade!_ Bucky curses when the sphere suddenly starts blinking. He barely has time to cover his face before the weapon explodes, a wave of heat slamming into him.  
  
The sergeant is still blinking the spots from his eyes when the alley door bursts open and close to a dozen agents boil out. One of them, a dame, sees Bucky standing in the street and barks out a command. French, of course, which was never his best language, but he can guess the gist.  
  
“Wait! I didn't...” he starts, holding out his hands. Only, like a total genius, he forgot about the gun.  
  
The sniper dives to the ground as the air fills with lead, half a dozen slugs sparking off his metal arm. Then one grazes his side and instinct takes over; suddenly Bucky is back on the battlefield. These people are a threat and eliminating threats is what he does. He takes out the shooters so that Steve can go in clean.  
  
Bucky fires. One bullet. One agent. One after the other until there are no targets left. He's lying on the street, the scent of blood and gunpowder heavy in the air. All of the French agents are down, no moaning, no groaning; the sniper always was a damn good shot when he put his mind to it.  
  
“Shit, shit, shit,” he curses, staring at the scene in horror. “No. I didn't mean... Shit!”  
  
The sergeant drops the gun like it's on fire and scrambles to his feet. His shoes stick on the cobblestones as he runs to the first agent, hoping against hope that the man is still alive. It's 521. His target. Bucky's shot took him right between the eyes and the sniper has to look away from that accusing gaze. It's not the blood or the smell that makes his gorge rise violently; it's the knowledge that this man didn't need to die.  
  
Bucky hears a groan and snaps upright, searching for the source. However, finding it doesn't make him feel any better. By the way her breath is bubbling, the dame won't last very long.  
  
“Oh, God. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” Bucky says, kneeling at the agent's side. He takes her hand and her eyes widen slightly, probably wondering why her killer is pretending at remorse. But the sergeant does care no matter what she thinks and while it's much too late to save this woman, he won't let her die alone.  
  
“Wh-” the agent starts to ask, a bloody froth spilling from her lips before the question cuts off suddenly. She shakes her head, panic filling her eyes as she looks at something over Bucky's shoulder, and then a shot rings out.  
  
The dame's head dissolves in a shower of blood that splashes scarlet across the sergeant's face and hands. He grabs the agent's pistol off the ground as he spins from his crouch and sees Boris standing right behind him, a gun in his hand and a smirk upon his face.  
  
“She was dying!” Bucky shouts, a red haze of fury washing over him. He barely hesitates, just aims and fires, three bullets taking his handler in the chest.  
  
But that's not enough to satisfy the sniper. He tackles Boris to the ground, dropping his gun to wrap his hands around the Russian's neck. Months of hate and helpless fury have overwhelmed his self-control and Bucky doesn't care about the consequences anymore. Not right now. All he cares about is punishing this bastard for his sins.  
  
Bucky punches his handler in the face with his left hand, bones cracking underneath that metal fist. He beats the other man until he's nothing but a pile of twitching meat and then he sits back, panting heavily.  
  
 _Fuck. What do I do now?_  
  
The sergeant is so lost in self-recrimination that he doesn't hear the man walking up behind him. There's just the click of a syringe being emptied and then Bucky crumples, a puppet with its strings cut now that the play is done.

 


	8. To Yield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters this time since they're short. Posting will be more regular since I finally got the whole fic finished and I've also gone through and fixed some errors in parts 1-7 so they should be better now.

When he opens his eyes, Bucky assumes that he's in a French prison, waiting to be charged with twelve counts of murder and one righteous execution. Because he's handcuffed to a table in some tiny cell, nothing but cold white walls to keep him company. The thought sets his heart racing – if he's been arrested, what will Hydra do to Steve? – and he yanks at his cuffs until the left one snaps.  
  
“Breaking our equipment again?” The door in the far wall swings open and Bucky isn't sure whether he's relieved or horrified when Grebenshchikov walks into view. He's back in the Red Room after all.  
  
“What the hell is going on?”  
  
Instead of answering Bucky's question, the scientist tosses a folder down onto the table and then sits in the chair across from him. “That was quite a show. You could not have performed your task more admirably.”  
  
His tone is amused, far too amused for the latest clusterfuck. Unless... “You set me up!”  
  
“Not at all. Pieter set the stage but you could have fled or surrendered. We did not make you fight,” Grebenshchikov says. “However, for all your protests, it seems you kill when threatened and kill quite skillfully. So it is time to admit that you are a weapon, Soldier. A weapon that will fight for Hydra or be broken down for scrap.”  
  
“What?! No!” the sergeant protests. “I won't be your assassin!”  
  
“You do not understand, soldier. There is no other option,” the doctor tells him, his proud smile making Bucky want to puke. “You are a murderer already, killing for our cause.”  
  
Grebenshchikov opens the folder and lays a series of photos out on the table one by one, the sergeant's blood running cold when he looks at the images.  
  
“How did you get these?”  
  
The photos are of his mission, of the bloodbath in the alley. No one should have been able to take a picture under those conditions but here they are in living color: Bucky with the gun, Bucky watching the explosion, Bucky with his finger on the trigger, and Bucky kneeling at the female agent's side. Every image paints him as a cold-blooded killer and when Grebenshchikov lays down the final image, the sergeant knows he's fucked. Because the series ends with a picture of Bucky's snarl as he beats his handler bloody and there's no way to argue that. He's Hydra's fucking patsy now; the fool who takes the fall.  
  
“How is not important,” the Russian answers. “What matters is that you killed a dozen agents and we have the proof right here. We have sent copies of these photos to the French, the Americans, and the British. Every country where you might have found an ally, you will find only hatred because James Buchanan Barnes has been proven a traitor to his country and his cause. Hydra is the only place that will give you succor now.”  
  
Bucky can feel the trap closing in around him but he can't see an escape. Despite his protests, the sergeant had known that Grebenshchikov wouldn't accept disobedience forever. His only hope had been to get out before that moment came. But now it's here and it's too late.  
  
He doesn't want to kill people, not for Hydra, not for anyone, not anymore. But if the sergeant doesn't then that's it, game over; he'll be dead and Steve will still be trapped here with his worst enemies. Hydra will tear the other man apart unless Bucky surrenders to be broken in his stead.  
  
So really, the choice is easy. His hands are stained with blood already and protecting Steve is worth the cost.  
  
 _I've always been your shield, Stevie. Ever since that scrawny kid cussed me out in Brooklyn for coming to his rescue; ever since you grinned at me with a split lip and bloody teeth. I'm yours in every way that counts already so what's one more sacrifice?_  
  
“Fine. I'll do your missions,” Bucky tells Grebenshchikov through gritted teeth. “But don't expect me to be grateful for the opportunity.”  
  
“Don't worry, Soldier. You can curse me all you like as long as you pull the trigger when required,” the scientist replies. He stands up again, leaving the photos on the table as he turns to go. Grebenshchikov opens the door and then pauses, looking back over his shoulder to twist the knife a little more. “The lead agent was your old friend Dernier's eldest daughter; did you know that? One of the best agents France has ever had.”  
  
The doctor's words leave Bucky reeling as the door clicks shut again. He drops back into his seat and buries his head in his hands. Hurting his friend was the last thing that the sniper ever wanted and killing his family is the worst hurt of all. He remembers Dernier talking proudly about his girls during the war, remembers the photos that the other man used to show them. _I guess I know why she looked familiar._  
  
Eventually someone comes to let the sergeant out, unlocking his remaining cuff and leading him back to his room. He opens the door with a sigh, wanting nothing more than to shower and to sleep. But when Bucky walks inside and turns on the light, he stops short in surprise.  
  
There's a dame on his bed. A real looker wearing nothing but a satin slip and a scarlet smile, her lips curved at him invitingly. She's blond and pretty and what the hell is she doing in the Red Room? What is she doing here? Hydra wouldn't send him a girl for no damn reason and he doesn't need another gift with strings attached.  
  
“What's going on?” Bucky asks warily.  
  
“What does it look like?” the broad replies, letting out a coquettish little giggle as she stretches on his bed. The motion makes her slip ride up her thighs and the sniper catches a glimpse of lace before he tears his eyes away. “I'm your reward for a job well done.”  
  
“My what?”  
  
“Your reward. Grebenshchikov thought you might be lonely and asked me to comfort you. All men have needs and it's my job to fulfill your fantasies. Come here, handsome. Show me what a hunk like you can do.”  
  
“No. I don't want... No,” Bucky says, shaking his head. It's been a long time and she's damn attractive, but he can't do this. Not here. Not now. Not when his captors are probably watching to see what lines he'll cross. How can the sergeant trust that she actually wants to be here when Grebenshchikov is so damn good at blackmail? How can he trust anything? Bucky has never bedded anyone who didn't want him and he won't start now, not willingly.  
  
“Please, doll; you need to leave.”  
  
“Fine.” The dame climbs off his bed with a huff, glaring at the sniper as she stalks out the door. Maybe she really did want to be here but that doesn't change his answer.  
  
Bucky hopes that she won't get in trouble for her failure. He hopes that Grebenshchikov will let him have this one denial and write the whole thing off as a failed experiment. He needs this small rebellion, sad though it may be; he needs to pretend that he's still human after what he just agreed to, a human with a conscience buried somewhere deep.  
  
 _What the hell am I doing, Stevie?_ Bucky thinks, throwing himself down on the bed. _You always were the better Catholic so tell me, how many sins can one person commit before God stops forgiving? How many pieces of my soul can I afford to sign away?_

 


	9. To Reap

One target. One bullet.  
  
One target, one bullet, half a dozen missions and the dominoes keep falling one by one. Although Bucky sometimes hesitates, he never fails to pull the trigger when it counts.  
  
Grebenshchikov christens him the Winter Soldier after he spends three days in a snowdrift waiting for his seventh target. He breaks the man's neck with his bare hands and then shoves him off a cliff to fake a tragic skiing accident. It takes the sergeant two more days to thaw and sometimes he can still feel the echo of that frozen cold beneath his skin. Sometimes he feels like a corpse in truth instead of just in name. For Bucky is a ghost, the assassin Hydra uses when no one else will do. He's the one they don't admit to, the shadow in the dark, and his targets are dead men walking as soon as he's set loose.  
  
The sergeant doesn't ask any questions beyond what's necessary. If he has to kill these people then it's better that they're strangers and he tries not to think about the sorrow that he's leaving in his wake.  
  
After every mission, there's a new dame waiting for him. Blond, brunette, redhead – Bucky sends them all away. No matter how tempting, the brief pleasure isn't worth it. He doesn't want to be rewarded for killing Hydra's enemies and he plans to continue his refusal as long as Grebenshchikov allows.  
  
Bucky's existence is a grey limbo broken up by bursts of violence. Sometimes he wakes up on a table in the lab and doesn't remember how he got there or struggles with his name. The scientists age and disappear but the sniper never changes; he still looks twenty-seven even as Grebenshchikov gains a smart young protégé. The only bright spot in Bucky's life is seeing Steve before each mission, these brief visits the one demand he ever makes.  
  
If the Red Room ever kills his captain then the sergeant will destroy them. Hydra's greatest assassin would turn on his masters instantly.  
  
But Grebenshchikov knows which threats to utter. The doctor has Bucky by the balls as long as Steve is in his pocket, a careful balance that he juggles skillfully. He can give the sergeant any order, send him anywhere without supervision, and trust that he'll come crawling back with one more stain upon his soul.

 


	10. To Take

On his twenty-second mission, the sniper is sent to New York City. He doesn't know how Hydra manages to sneak him into the country when he's a wanted traitor and to tell the truth, he doesn't care. 

Bucky is used to being drugged and waking up in foreign countries – that's the Red Room's basic MO every time he starts a mission – and it's not as though he could borrow Hydra's method. He'll have to get Steve home some other way.

This time the sergeant wakes up in a bank vault underneath Manhattan. His captors seem to have these safehouses in every major city. They're stocked full of money, guns, clothing, and one or two low level flunkies to give him everything he needs. No handlers any longer, not for him.

Bucky blinks at the ceiling a few times and then sits up, waving off the man who tries to help him stand. One of Hydra's nameless lackeys, he hovers awkwardly as the sergeant runs through some stretches to get the stiffness out. As always, Bucky finishes with his left arm, twisting and turning until the gears are whirring smoothly once again. While the ache in his shoulder never fades completely, the stretches keep him functional enough to push on through the pain.

“My mission?” the sniper asks once he's worked out all the kinks. He holds out his hand and Hydra's man gives him a folder with the details of his target. Grebenshchikov has gotten lazy with his briefings; “You're killing someone in New York” was the extent of his latest summary.

That was more vague than usual, which probably means that Bucky's current target isn't someone that he'll like. The sniper has crippled half a dozen doctors over the years in fits of temper, Boris far from the only soldier who gave his life for Hydra's cause. Honestly, Grebenshchikov doesn't seem to care as long as he's not injured and indeed, Bucky may be adding another flunky to his body count tonight. Because when he reads the target's name, his vision washes red.

_Howard Stark,_ Bucky thinks, crushing the folder in his hands. _Howard **fucking** Stark._

“What the Hell is this?” the sergeant growls, slamming Hydra's unfortunate lackey up against the wall. Bucky presses his metal arm against the man's throat until he chokes and it takes all of his self-control not to kill the bastard now. Grebenshchikov has never asked the sniper to assassinate someone that he recognizes; the Red Room has never asked him to kill someone that he knew before.

“What the Hell is this?!” Bucky asks again.

“I-I don't know,” the other man gasps out. “I-It's just w-what I was given. I h-hand out paperwork. Please... I d-don't want to d-die.”

The sniper shoves his arm forward until his captive starts turning purple, his feet kicking helplessly against the wall. The world would hardly miss another Hydra flunky, some dumb-ass kid who chose the wrong side in this war.

_And what would Steve think if he saw you now? What about this poor fool's mama when he never comes back home?_

“Fuck. Just fuck this shit,” Bucky swears. He drops the other man to the floor just before he passes out and then spins around, kicking a chair across the room. “Howard fucking Stark.”

The sergeant doesn't know if he can do this. Stark might have been an asshole through and through but he'd been a friend to Steve when Bucky couldn't. He deserves better than a bullet in the dark. Hell, he won't even get a bullet since the Winter Soldier isn't meant to be here; Howard Stark is slated for another tragic accident.

“You. What's your name?”

“Jasper, s-sir,” the lackey stammers. He looks like he's not sure whether to be honored or terrified that Bucky is speaking to him, one hand rubbing at his tortured throat.

“Show me your clothes. I need something inconspicuous that will blend in on the street,” the sniper orders and Jasper jumps to obey. He opens a cabinet in the far wall, offering Bucky his choice of casual wear. Jeans and hoodies and long sleeve t-shirts; it's enough to make the sergeant sigh.

“No one makes an effort anymore,” he mutters. No gal would have looked twice at someone who dressed this badly back in 1945.

“Sir?”

“It's nothing,” Bucky says, waving Jasper off. He makes his selection and changes quickly, finishing the outfit with a pair of leather gloves. “Is there a key to this place? I need to do some scouting and I don't know when I'll be back.”

“No key, sir. Code 5671 will open the side door,” the other man explains as Bucky swipes his mission folder off the floor. “I've been instructed to wait here until your work is finished so just knock on the vault when you return. Oh, and the cameras have all been taken care of; you won't need to be careful sneaking out.”

Bucky acknowledges Jasper's information with a sharp nod and then strides out of the vault. A hallway, a set of stairs, and then another hallway spits him out in the bank proper, high arching ceilings and gilded frescoes on the walls. Steve always used to love these sort of buildings; he used to say that art and architecture should work hand in hand. The memory hits Bucky hard and he has to stop for a moment, his heart aching to be back home again.

_But Brooklyn isn't home now; not with Steve in Russia. And our old apartment was probably torn down years ago,_ the sergeant tells himself. He hasn't been back to New York since he shipped out in the forties and there's no way his city hasn't changed.

Indeed, stepping out onto the street is like stepping into a war zone, lights and cars and noise as far as he can see. The city has only grown more crowded and the apartments taller, concrete spires reaching toward the sky. Bucky doesn't recognize more than half a dozen building in the skyline when he looks around so he just picks a direction and starts walking aimlessly. He's always thought best while moving and he needs to think right now.

_How did I get here?_ the sniper wonders. _How did whether or not to murder Howard Stark become a choice I have to make?_

He doesn't want to. Of course he doesn't _want_ to. But what Bucky wants hasn't mattered for a long, long time. What matters is Steve and what he can get away with, whether he can lie to Grebenshchikov without pushing him too far. The man accepts Bucky's hatred without flinching and injured henchmen with a shrug but actual disobedience is met with swift and brutal retribution; the sergeant's learned that lesson more than once.

Those are the nightmares that make him wake up screaming, a stranger's fingers clawing at the inside of his brain. Those are the nights that he ends up puking his guts out in a corner, trying to erase the memory of Steve's whimpers from his mind. 

Grebenshchikov won't kill the other man – the sergeant won't allow it – but he can't stop the scientist from hurting him, from hurting both of them in ways that Bucky doesn't want to think about. The space between dead and dying is larger than most people realize, an empty chasm that the doctor fills with pain.

So doing nothing is not an option. Howard Stark isn't exactly a private figure and Hydra is certainly going to notice if he simply doesn't die. Bucky could try to fake a failure but Grebenshchikov knows the limits of the Winter Soldier's skill too well. The sniper would probably have to get himself shot in order for the Russian to believe him and Hydra would just send someone else to do the job instead. He may be their most talented assassin but quantity over quality will take the best man down.

_I could tell him,_ Bucky thinks. _Tell Stark the truth and ask for him to help me. The man's a genius, a weapons trader, and filthy rich to boot; who better to go against the Red Room? Who else would be mad enough to try?_

Stark could fake his death, keep Hydra off balance long enough for Bucky to be transported back to Russia and signal him somehow. All the sergeant needs is a bit of tech to scramble Grebenshchikov's defenses, a bit of luck to break into Stevie's cryo-chamber, and a fancy Stark-made weapon to fight his way back out. Plus a ride, of course, but Stark owns half a dozen airplanes; he could afford to pick them up.

_And then what?_ Assuming Stark believed his story, assuming the other man actually had tech to match the Red Room, assuming that Grebenshchikov didn't find out the truth and kill his captain first... What would happen afterward? Captain America was a national fucking hero; he had his own damn holiday. Even without Hydra's influence, the SSR would never allow Steve to continue his friendship with a traitor. If Bucky was lucky, they'd just execute him and he might get to say goodbye. If he was unlucky, they'd toss him in prison or another laboratory and throw away the key.

Either way, Steve would be left with no one. No one who remembered that there was a man inside that costume; no one who cared more about Steve Rogers than the hero he'd become. Steve would be left with only the SSR for protection, a few good agents and a mountain of corruption underneath.

Bucky can't trust them to keep Steve safe and he sure as Hell can't trust the other man to keep himself alive. 

“Watch it, dickhead,” someone snarls, bumping into the sniper's shoulder. Bucky's head snaps up, his hand curling into a fist before he can stop himself. But it's not a threat; it's just some asshole who's too big for his britches, and Bucky actually finds it comforting that New Yorkers haven't changed. 

Apparently, the streets also haven't changed as much as he'd thought. When the sergeant looks around, his feet have led him straight back to Brooklyn and his old neighborhood. Not much of it is left now, the old apartments replaced with gleaming condos, and his old haunts long forgotten. No one goes to dance halls anymore. But the corner store is still there, the one that used to sell candy for a penny and soda pop for five. It's even got the same name on the sign above the door, three generations of Giovannis going strong.

The sniper grew up on these streets. He hung out on that corner and met Steve behind that building, threw two punches to end the brawling and completely changed his life. Because Bucky didn't fall in love like in the pictures – with some gorgeous broad in a flowing gown and everybody cheering. Bucky fell in love with dirt on his knees and blood on his knuckles and he never once looked back.

_Never told him either. Told Stevie all about the dames just to see him blushing but never told him how many times I've almost called his name in bed. Couldn't risk him hating me,_ the sergeant thinks before his lips twist sardonically. _Actually, no, who am I kidding? I knew he'd let me down gently while promising eternal friendship and that would've been so much fucking worse. I probably would've volunteered instead of being drafted just to escape the awkwardness._

Bucky's life would have been a whole lot shorter then. He would have died on Zola's table without Steve's slapdash rescue. No serum. No Winter Soldier. Just one more forgotten grave.

_James Buchanan Barnes. MIA. 1943._

But Bucky didn't tell him and Steve paid for his silence with his freedom if not with his life. It's Bucky's fault that the other man was captured by the Red Room and that's a debt he cannot pay.

“I'm going to kill Howard Stark,” the sergeant murmurs, shoving his hands into his pockets as he takes one last look around. The street is mostly empty now, no one close enough to hear him, and he just wanted to know how the words would sound.

Truthfully, Bucky almost expects to be struck by lightning but all that answers him is silence. If God exists, then He's not interfering, maybe because the sniper already knows that this is wrong. Free will means the right to sin as well as prosper and he knows which road he's on.

So Bucky just nods once before spinning on his heel and walking off. He's done talking to his ghosts and now that he's come to a decision, it's time to make a plan.

In truth, the act is simple. The security in Stark's mansion is laughable considering his fortune, men hired for their ability to look scary rather than their skill. Within six hours, Bucky has snuck inside and is hiding in the rafters, staying out of sight as he listens to the servants gossiping. One is getting married, one doesn't know what to buy for supper, and one needs to prep the Lamborghini so that Stark can drive back into the city later on.

Apparently the scientist is still a workaholic, spending more time in his lab than with his family, and Bucky can't help feeling sorry for the man's poor wife and kid. Howard always was self-centered and the woman who married him must have the patience of a saint.

Her loss is the sergeant's gain since a late evening drive is the perfect setting for an 'accident.' Bucky follows Stark's mechanic into the garage, waiting until the man is finished and then making a few modifications of his own. Bucky doesn't cut Stark's brake line; there's bound to be an investigation and that would be too obvious. However, a few frayed edges can work wonders, enough that a sudden stop should send Stark spinning out of control. If the crash doesn't kill him then the sniper will.

Once the car is prepped, Bucky sneaks back outside and jogs a few miles up the road. He's not leaving anything to chance on this one, but ensuring an accident isn't hard at all. The sergeant simply finds a blind corner and waits until he hears Stark coming before stepping out into the middle of the road.

Honestly, the other man might have crashed without assistance since he and his wife are fighting when Bucky startles them. He can see them through the windshield: Stark frustrated and the woman disappointed before she sees the sniper and her eyes go wide in fear. She wasn't supposed to die tonight but Stark is already swerving and his wife screams shrilly as the Lamborghini goes careening off the road.

All Bucky can do is watch as the car flips and rolls, sliding down the embankment with a crunch of broken grass. When he looks in the window, both Starks are dead already, necks broken cleanly in the fall.

Their deaths were quick and painless and the sergeant takes this as a comfort. A small comfort but the only one he has.

Bucky checks the scene one more time and then heads back the way he came. While this road is private, Stark's servants might have heard the crash and he needs to be gone before someone calls the cops. 

The sniper takes a roundabout route back to Manhattan, slipping onto a bus with a bunch of drunken students to muddy up the trail. No one should be looking for him but it never hurts to be cautious and focusing on stealth stops Bucky from thinking about what he's just done.

“The job is finished. Get your drugs and call my fucking masters because I want to leave right now,” the sergeant growls when he finally arrives back at the safehouse, shoving Jasper out of the way when he opens the vault door. The other man was waiting there just like he'd promised, a good little flunky through and through.

“Okay, um, I need to make a phone call,” Jasper stammers, waving vaguely toward the back. The man's an utter twit and the sniper really wants to smack him, which means he'll probably be running the whole show in twenty years. However, twit or not, he gets Bucky out in record time.

Grebenshchikov is all smiles when the sergeant wakes up in the Red Room, patting Bucky on the shoulder like he just passed another test. Hell, he probably did. But he's not in the mood for celebrating. The Winter Soldier never fails a mission because Bucky Barnes is Hydra's fucking lapdog and the chain around his neck gets tighter every time he breathes.

He returns to his room as soon as Grebenshchikov allows it, ready to send away the usual broad so that he can go to sleep. But when the sniper turns on the light, his words die unspoken and his heart lurches painfully.

Because the man on his bed is small and blond and fragile, like Steve before the serum, and Bucky can't stop himself from reaching out. He touches the man's face, half expecting him to be a hallucination, but his skin is warm when the sergeant strokes two fingers down his cheek. The blond smiles up at Bucky, his lips parted in invitation, and the sniper's resistance shatters into dust. He's never going to have Steve and he knows it; what the harm in pretending just this once?

“Don't say anything,” Bucky orders, waiting until the other man nods before leaning down to claim his mouth. He kisses the blond fiercely and then again with all the gentleness that he can muster. Tonight this man is Steve. Tonight the sergeant is going to forget that he's a traitor, a coward, and a sinner with bloodstains on his hands.


	11. To Protect

“This is Subject 11. You will train her.” 

Grebenshchikov walks into the room and shoves a girl toward Bucky with one hand. She's small and delicate, with bright red hair and huge dark eyes, and she can't be more than ten if she's a day.

“What are you talking about? I'm not a teacher. Why don't you choose someone else?” the sniper asks. He's stalling for time, trying to wrap his head around the idea of a child in the Red Room. This has to be some new trick, some new test or sick experiment.

“Who else?” the scientist replies. “She is your daughter after all.”

“ **What?!** But I've never...” Bucky trails off. He hasn't slept with a single dame since he woke up in Russia. The sniper hasn't even slept with another man since killing Howard Stark. As soon as he gave in, the visits ended and he sees the inside of a cryo-tube more often than an actual room these days.

“Your preferences were interesting, yes, and slightly inconvenient. She is not your natural daughter,” Grebenshchikov admits. “Subject 11 was created from a mix of your genes and your captain's – those born from him alone never survived past infancy.”

“You made a kid from me and Steve?” the sergeant asks, staring at the girl incredulously. He can't even... A _child_? Bucky never thought he'd have kids and now he has a daughter? It seems impossible. Assuming that the Russian isn't lying through his teeth. This girl could be anyone; she could be some child that the Red Room dragged in off the street.

“Of course I made a child. I would have cloned you if I could. But that is not yet possible,” the doctor sighs. “Still, studying the serum's effects in a maturing body has been quite interesting. I intend to learn why your captain's offspring faltered and why Subject 11 has outlived her other siblings. With this knowledge, I will finally be able to create an army of serum-enhanced soldiers to help Hydra cleanse the world. And you will help me. You will train Subject 11 to fight as you do, create an assassin who will be always overlooked.”

“What? No!” Bucky protests. “I don't care if she's my daughter; she's just a kid. I won't show her how to kill.”

“That is unfortunate. If you don't then she will die,” Grebenshchikov says with a shrug. He clearly wants the sergeant to ask for an explanation, the obvious manipulation making Bucky want to do the opposite. He wants to spite the bastard, he really does, but then he meets Subject 11's frightened eyes. While both men have been speaking English and she doesn't seem to understand them, she clearly knows that something bad is going on.

“Okay, fine,” the sniper growls, throwing up his hands. “Why will she die?”

“Because we will test her. Whether you train her or not, we shall lock her in a cell with several criminals – perhaps murderers, perhaps those who care for children, I have not yet decided. If Subject 11 cannot kill, then I have no further need of her and without training, she will not leave that room alive. Her serum is far diluted and she lacks a warrior's heart.”

No one should be able to talk about killing children without changing their expression and Bucky hates Grebenshchikov for his nonchalance. Though maybe the Russian is only acting unconcerned because he knows that the sniper will give in and Bucky hates him all the more because he's right.

Whether or not this girl is actually his daughter – _Steve's_ daughter – the sergeant can't just leave her to the fate that Grebenshchikov describes. He doesn't know whether he can train her well enough to save her, but he knows he has to try.

So Bucky nods his head with gritted teeth, his fists clenching when the doctor smirks at him. “Only a token protest; you are learning, Soldier. Subject 11 will be your sole mission for the next three months. She will be completely in your care and you will have free run of the training chambers. Teach her well, Soldier, or watch your child die.”

Grebenshchikov leaves the sniper alone with his new charge and for a second he can only stare at the girl helplessly. She's so tiny, so frightened; how the Hell is Bucky supposed to teach her how to kill?

He takes a step forward and she flinches, her wariness triggering a forgotten memory. The sergeant's little sister had been prone to nightmares and she always came to him for comfort in the middle of the night. If he could coax Becca out from under her bed after she dreamed he was the boogeyman then he should be able to talk to this girl now. The sniper doesn't have to be the Winter Soldier even if he can't be Bucky; he'd rather show her kindness than rage or cruelty.

“Hey, it's all right,” the sergeant murmurs in Russian, kneeling down so that he looks less ominous. “My name is James but you can call me Yasha. Grebenshchikov wants me to teach you self-defense.”

His voice is soft and gentle and he smiles when the girl looks up. “I'm going to show you how to protect yourself from anyone who wants to hurt you. Would you like that? The world is much less scary when you know how to fight. And if I'm going to be your teacher, I need to call you something. Is there a name you like?”

“They just call me 11,” the girl whispers.

“Well, I think we can find something much prettier than that,” Bucky says. “Only if you want, of course. I can call you 11 if you wish.”

“No...” she starts, then flinches as though expecting to be hit for talking back. But when the sergeant doesn't do anything, barely dares to breathe, she starts to speak again. “I don't like 11. 11 is one of many and I want to be myself.”

“All right. So how should we choose? Is there anything you like?”

“I like dancing,” she offers hesitantly. “Madam teaches me ballet to make me graceful and karate to make me strong. Math and letters and history, but I like dancing best.”

“A ballerina, huh? That's very impressive,” Bucky tells her. “When I was young, the best ballerinas were from Russia and they came to my city to perform. I never got to see them but I saw the posters and I still remember the way their names flowed off my tongue: Katarina and Natalia and Anastasia, gorgeous names for gorgeous gals. My youngest sister demanded that I call her Natalie for weeks and drove my mother crazy. Do any of those names sound good to you?”

“Can I... Can I be Natalia?”

“Of course, sweetheart. How about Natalia Romanova? That's a good strong Russian name and we're both Russian now, Natashen'ka,” the sergeant says, the diminutive rolling off his tongue unconsciously. “So since that's settled, why don't we get some food? I'm starving and you'll need your strength to learn.”

Bucky holds out his hand, waiting patiently until Natalia reaches out. Her hand is tiny compared to his but there's strength in those small fingers. She clutches at him like a lifeline when he opens the door, sticking close to the sergeant's side. Although Bucky has earned her trust for the moment, he still has to keep it even as he teaches her to kill men twice her size. His task seems insurmountable but he's determined to do the best he can.

He starts by having Natalia show him everything she knows already, from the dancing to karate to the best ways to hide. It could be worse. She is graceful and certainly stronger than most children, but that won't be enough to save her from anyone with training or a gun.

“You cannot rely on strength,” Bucky tells her on the second day. “You are too small for that. You will need speed and trickery in order to survive.”

If she is going to fight, then she must fight dirty. The sergeant pulls out all the tricks he learned in bar brawls and fighting in the trenches, as well as a few moves from Hydra's men as well. They tend to rely more on guns than training but there are one or two people who can last five minutes hand to hand if he doesn't use his metal arm.

“You can get into fistfights when you're older. For now, you should never go toe to toe with anyone,” the sniper orders. “If you're outmatched then it's better to admit it before you get beaten all to Hell. Get some distance and a weapon if you can.”

Bucky used to tell Steve the exact same thing back in Brooklyn but the other man never listened; he just took punches like he was aiming for a record and broke his nose three times. The sergeant can see something of Steve in the stubborn set of Natalia's jaw. Every time he throws her down, she gets back up and tries harder, but she lacks the reckless streak that drove Bucky nuts back then. Natalia is more practical, willing to fight dirty if it means not getting hurt, and the sniper has to wonder if she got that trait from him.

The more time he spends with Natalia, the more Bucky thinks that she might actually be their daughter. There's nothing definitive that he can point to; she doesn't have the sniper's hair or his captain's bright blue eyes. But when the light catches her face just right, Bucky can almost see his mother and the girl's smile is Stevie through and through.

Natalia shares his skill with guns and she definitely shares the serum that runs through Steve and Bucky's blood. When she twists wrong and sprains her wrist, the injury is fully healed three days later. She doesn't recover instantly but still faster than she should.

“This is a good lesson. You will not always be able to stop fighting when you're injured. Sometimes you must push through the pain instead.”

“Is that what you do?” she asks him later, pointing at his metal arm. 

“Yes. The arm makes me stronger but strength almost always comes with sacrifice. If anyone tells you otherwise they are a liar or a fool,” the sergeant explains, tucking Natalia in carefully. She's been staying in his room for lack of other orders and truthfully, Bucky doesn't mind. He prefers to have her close where he can protect her and in another week or two, he'll starting training her for surprise attacks in the middle of the night. 

But since they spend so much together, the sergeant has few secrets. She's seen his daily stretches and the way he winces in the evening when he pushed himself too hard. The serum heals the injuries but it doesn't make the arm stop hurting; he's just learned to ignore the pain as best he can.

“Does that mean the people who hurt you are the ones who care about you?” Natalia asks quietly. “Because those are the people who want you to be stronger and denying pain just makes you weak?”

“No! God no,” Bucky bites out, feeling like she just stabbed him in the heart. He can't let his daughter grow up believing that. “I don't... I'm no good at explanations but that's not true at all. Anyone who claims to be hurting you for your own good is an asshole or a bully and you shouldn't believe a word they say. And maybe I'm no better. I turned your injury into a lesson and you can hate me if you want. But if I had a choice, neither of us would be here. This place, the Red Room, it's not a good place and I just want you to survive. So while I can't promise not to hurt you; I promise that I'll never do it willingly.”

Natalia considers his words for a moment while Bucky waits nervously. He wishes Steve were here. Steve would have known how to explain this whole fucked up situation and kept him from messing up their daughter's life.

“Okay,” Natalia says eventually. “I believe you.”

She reaches out to pat his shoulder and then closes her eyes, falling asleep almost instantly. She shows such trust in him that Bucky feels honored and so very, very guilty; he feels even guiltier when their three months are up.

Grebenshchikov comes for Natalia with a group of soldiers in the morning and the sergeant doesn't want to give her up. If he were a better man, he would fight to the death to save his daughter but he stands paralyzed instead. One girl against Steve's life; one girl against the possibility of endless children cooked up in a laboratory and he can't make that choice.

“Remember what I taught you,” Bucky tells Natalia, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Survive at any cost.”

Then he lets the soldiers take her, watching his daughter until she rounds the corner and he can't see her anymore. The sergeant assumes that his masters will send him on another mission or back into cryo-stasis and he follows after Grebenshchikov obediently when the doctor turns and walks away.

But instead the Russian leads Bucky to a chamber that he doesn't recognize. This room is in the heart of the Red Room's compound and perhaps this is the beating heart of Grebenshchikov's control. Because every wall is filled with camera feeds; the sniper can see a handful of hallways and armories; his room and the different training chambers; the entrance to Steve's cryo-chamber and the snowy fields outside. This is how the Russian knows everything that happens in the Red Room even when he's not around.

“Come, Soldier. It is time,” Grebenshchikov says, pointing at one central screen. As Bucky watches, the camera shifts to show Natalia and he takes a step forward without meaning to. She's alone in an empty room, nothing but her clothes and his lessons for protection now.

As the sergeant watches, the door to the room slides open and three hulking men walk in. They look like they came straight from prison and their faces twist with sick anticipation when they see Natalia standing there.

“You have earned the right to witness your daughter's ending,” the scientist tells Bucky. “We shall see if your training was enough and perhaps she will survive.”

There's a snort to the sniper's left and he glances over to see Alexei Perov, Grebenshchikov's special protégé. The man is an even bigger dick than his mentor, which should be impossible. At least the older scientist usually has a reason for his tortures; Perov is just a sadistic bastard who hates the fact that Bucky can still think for himself. He wants the sergeant broken until there's nothing left but Hydra's dog.

“The little bitch will die here,” Perov says with a smirk. “We should be focusing on cloning and brainwashing instead of these pet projects. We need soldiers with unflinching loyalty.”

“Perhaps. But men who cannot think will not adapt when the situation changes; they must be managed and that grows tiring. You think too much in shows of force instead of subtlety,” Grebenshchikov answers sharply, Perov subsiding at the censure in his voice. Then the older scientist leans forward and speaks into a microphone. “Kill her now.”

The prisoners rush toward Natalia and Bucky finds he cannot watch this. He cannot watch his daughter either kill or die. So he turns his eyes away and studies the room around him, trying to memorize each dial's purpose and each camera's blindspot as shouts and curses fill his ears. Bucky can look away but he cannot stop himself from listening, dreading the sound of Natalia's final scream, and he clenches his right hand into a fist until he starts to bleed.

When the fighting finally stops, the sergeant still can't bring himself to look. He stands frozen until Grebenshchikov claps him on the back and says cheerfully, “Congratulations, Soldier. You exceeded expectations by a large margin. Subject 11 is most promising indeed.”

Bucky glances up at the screen to see Natalia. She's covered in blood but she's the last one standing and the sniper doesn't know whether he wants to cheer or weep. His girl survived but she survived to live with Hydra and when she looks up at the camera, her eyes are different now. Defiant and determined, but no longer innocent. 

The guilt is enough to drown the sergeant if he lets it, his treatment of Natalia just one small drop within an overwhelming flood. No matter how he tries, Bucky can't block out the nightmares and the weight on his mind grows heavier with every mission he completes. The sniper is starting to fray around the edges as he works himself into exhaustion, running at full speed until he collapses where he stands. 

Sometimes Grebenshchikov throws him into cryo and sometimes the Russian doesn't, time slipping through his fingers like the sand from a broken hourglass. Bucky only knows that years are passing because Natalia keeps getting older. She's ten then twelve then thirteen between one morning and the next.

He's still helps with her training sometimes, showing her how to use her strength and teaching her to speak English like a native, and her presence is one of the few bright spots in a sea of tortured dreams.

Because there's a chill in Bucky's bones that never seems to leave him. There's a hole in his soul that will not stop bleeding as he carves out his conscience piece by piece. He's in Hell, a Hell partly borne of his own making, and if not for Steve, he would have slit his wrists by now. 

But the sergeant made a promise to his captain and if someone has to suffer, then it's going to be him. Eventually his captors will get sloppy; eventually Grebenshchikov will make his last mistake.


	12. To Bow

When Natalia turns seventeen, the Red Room sends them on a mission to the south of Italy. Ostensibly, it's training: a bit of spying, some interrogation, and then an execution, the Winter Soldier acting as backup for his daughter on her first trip outside the Motherland.  
  
Their target is a man named Antonio Rigatoni; he broke a deal with Hydra and now he's going to commit assisted suicide. Nothing that Bucky hasn't done before.  
  
However, after Natalia leaves for the armory, Grebenshchikov pulls the sergeant aside and gives him additional instructions, orders that make him put his fist straight through the wall. This isn't just a mission; this is a test of his daughter's loyalty. This time the Red Room will be recording every single word he speaks.  
  
“Do not touch Subject 11 during this mission unless absolutely necessary,” the doctor adds as a final afterthought. “The electrical current running through your left arm tends to overload delicate machinery and my techs grow tired of resoldering your gear. However, we have planted enough listening devices that you need not fear our deafness. We shall hear your pleas and be ready to test Subject 11 the moment you return.”  
  
To be honest, Bucky has always wondered why Hydra didn't bug him every time he left the Red Room and he's almost amused that the answer is simple practicality. Almost because Natalia does not share the same protection. As long as Grebenshchikov is listening, the sniper cannot defy his orders, not even to spare his daughter pain.  
  
 _Although, it's not like I really know her,_ Bucky thinks once that first burst of rage has faded. _Maybe she'll pass this test without flinching and never think of me again._  
  
A few dozen visits over seven years barely constitutes an acquaintance and while he always tried to be as kind as possible, he's just one of several teachers in his daughter's life. Truthfully, the only reason the sniper hopes is because he cannot help it and because she still calls herself Natalia every time they speak.  
  
Other than the name, there is little to tie her to the frightened girl she used to be. His daughter has grown up strong and dangerous, as willing to put a knife in someone's throat as she is to smile at them, more willing probably. But when she does smile, Bucky can't blame the men who trip over their feet. Natalia has become quite a looker and indeed, it's almost laughably easy for her to secure an invitation to their target's house once they reach Italy.  
  
Antonio's youngest son, Donno, provides the opening. When Natalia “accidentally” bumps into him at a cafe, the man falls head over heels in lust immediately. Bucky watches the encounter from a distance as Donno does his best to impress the redhead and quickly turns to putty in her hands.  
  
Natalia smiles and giggles charmingly, batting her lashes around eyes as cold as steel. She plays hard to get until Donno invites her to a party at his family's mansion, promising to introduce her to his father and all his famous friends. Natalia sends the young man away with a score of empty promises and then meets back up with Bucky down the street.  
  
“What a waste of space,” she snorts. “I could have taken the shirt right off his back.”  
  
“Don't think of him too harshly,” the sergeant chides her gently. “Sure the kid's a dimwit and too rich for his own good, but easy marks have their own uses. Stiffs like that kept me and Ste- a friend from starving more than once when I was younger. Our neighborhood was popular for rich men slumming it and I could usually manage to hustle a few dollars from them before they ran back home again.”  
  
Steve came with Bucky sometimes; his friend enjoyed watching as he wrapped marks around his fingers until they didn't know which way was up. The blond used to say that he could take a guy's last penny and make him grateful for it, but that was really just a matter of picking the right man.  
  
There was a certain kind of fellow who would pay dearly for an evening's entertainment; those were usually the same ones who couldn't take their eyes off Bucky's mouth. When he was in the right mood, he'd give them what they wanted; he's never regretted finding pleasure where he could. But Bucky's favorite nights were the ones where he and Steve left the bars together, their pockets flush with cash and smiles on their faces as they walked down the street. Bucky would throw an arm around the other man's shoulders and tell him jokes until he could barely walk for laughing, the memory making the sergeant grin fondly even now.  
  
“Where did you grow up? You've never mentioned that before,” Natalia asks and Bucky startles; he'd forgotten she was there.  
  
The sniper's first instinct is to hold his secrets close since he hasn't talked about his past in decades. Even if he were willing, Hydra doesn't care. But Bucky will need to tell his daughter at least a portion of the truth in order to do what his masters ordered and since he's opened up the subject, he might as well start now. The memories are bittersweet, mostly bitter truthfully, and yet... Bucky wants Natalia to know her parents' history.  
  
So he tells his daughter about his family as they walk back to their safehouse. He tells her about New York while scouting the outside of Rigatoni's mansion, sharing stories about his best friend and the trouble that Steve always used to find.  
  
Bucky doesn't tell Natalia everything. He doesn't mention the war, the Howling Commandos, or his captain and he certainly doesn't mention his true allegiances. His daughter is hardly stupid; if the sniper suddenly starts spilling secrets, she'll assume that it's a trick and he can't afford to tip his hand just yet. Bucky needs to walk a careful balance to make Grebenshchikov think that he's complying with his orders while trying to ensure that Natalia will pass the Russian's test.  
  
Things would be much simpler if the sergeant could just warn her, but Grebenshchikov isn't the only one who doubts his daughter's loyalty. Bucky can't trust her not to betray him back to Hydra when the Red Room is all she's ever known.  
  
So the sniper keeps his stories light and entertaining, answering Natalia's questions without offering any details of his own. He needs her curious but wary and it's easy to tease at her suspicions. His daughter grew up in the Red Room, after all; she sees danger lurking behind every friendly smile and it's not as though he's ever talked much before this. Such loquacity is distinctly out of character and while Natalia laughs at the right moments, Bucky can feel her watching him when he looks away.  
  
By the time Rigatoni's party arrives, the sergeant thinks he's laid the groundwork and he turns his attention to their target with a distinct sense of relief. After everything he's done for Hydra, these small manipulations shouldn't make him feel as guilty as they do. But Natalia is family even if she doesn't know it and she deserves much more than he can give.  
  
As it is, Bucky just offers the redhead advice on her outfit for the evening, a slinky black dress that's going to hit Rigatoni right between the eyes. It's a good thing Natalia doesn't plan to shoot their target since she has no place to hide a pistol in that dress.  
  
Of course, that doesn't mean she's weaponless. One of their early lessons was that _everything_ is dangerous under the right circumstances and Bucky knows that his daughter's hairpins are sharp enough to slit a throat. She also has a shocker in her bracelet, two blades hidden in her sandals and can kill a man in sixteen ways with her hands alone. Anyone who attacks his daughter isn't likely to survive.  
  
Once Natalia has finished getting ready, the sergeant hands her an earpiece. This short range comm will let them coordinate their actions, though the clock starts ticking as soon as Bucky puts his on.  
  
“All right, we'd better go. We have about two hours before my comm shorts out.”  
  
Truthfully this is plenty of time since it only takes five minutes to reach Rigatoni's mansion, Bucky staying in the shadows as Natalia walks up to the front door. The guards announce her presence and Donno rushes out to greet her, ushering the redhead into his father's mansion as an honored guest. It's always easier when a target invites his doom inside.  
  
 _Honestly, this job doesn't need the Winter Soldier,_ Bucky thinks as he makes his way around the side of the house. _From what I've seen, any two-bit assassin could have handled this mission easily. But Grebenshchikov always has his reasons and when he says jump, I just ask how high?_  
  
Today, the answer is about twelve feet. That's the height of Rigatoni's garden wall. Bucky scales the wall and then slips down the other side, ducking behind some bushes when a guard walks past. Whoever installed Rigatoni's cameras ripped him off because there are blind spots wide enough to drive a truck through. Indeed, the sniper goes completely undetected as he infiltrates the mansion via a third story window; no one ever locks the upper floors.  
  
Bucky could have carved a bloody swath through the front entrance, but he tries to avoid collateral damage whenever possible and the whole point of the Winter Soldier is that no one sees him coming. Cross Hydra and you'll die before you even know he's there.  
  
The sniper sneaks deeper into the mansion until he finds a small alcove overlooking the main ballroom. Bucky plants himself in the shadows and settles in to wait, keeping one eye on his daughter and the other on the door.  
  
Meanwhile Natalia is busy charming two generations of Rigatonis several floors below. Bucky tracks the redhead's progress through his earpiece, eavesdropping on her conversations and discovering that listening to her flirt is quite uncomfortable. Antonio Rigatoni speaks in nothing but smarmy insinuations and a man that age has no business trying to steal his own son's love interest, not when Natalia is barely seventeen.  
  
But the sniper's daughter is conducting a different sort of interrogation than he's used to and this is all part of the plan. What the Winter Soldier would have bought with threats, Natalia is given freely in exchange for her attention, the Italian too busy bragging to realize that she isn't nearly as naive as she appears.  
  
“Time to wrap this up,” Bucky orders once Antonio Rigatoni has spilled his secrets – everything that Hydra requires to claim his operation once he's gone.  
  
Although Natalia doesn't acknowledge the sniper's words, he knows his daughter heard him when she leans forward and puts her hands on Rigatoni's arm, murmuring something that makes their target laugh.  
  
“You're a curious little thing, aren't you?” the Italian says with an audible leer. “If you think this is impressive, you must come see my office. I'm sure a girl of your talents would find it very… stimulating.”  
  
“Oh, I couldn't take you from your party,” Natalia replies, batting her eyelashes as she feigns naivety.  
  
“Don't worry about my guests, darling,” Rigatoni reassures the redhead quickly. “They can entertain themselves for half an hour. A girl like you deserves the special touch.”  
  
“Well, if you're certain,” she agrees with another little giggle. Donno tries to protest – he's clearly well aware of what his dad is thinking - but Natalia just kisses him on the cheek and promises to be back shortly before taking their target's arm.  
  
Bucky slips back into the hallway as Antonio leads his daughter from the ballroom. He knows where the pair is going and he plans to be there first. Although Rigatoni's office is locked, it’s an old-fashioned tumbler, and the sniper is through the door in twenty seconds flat. Bucky learned to pick locks with the Commandos, usually under fire, and so this is a cakewalk in comparison even with the gloves and metal arm.  
  
Once inside, the sergeant takes a quick look around the room as he shuts the door behind him. The office is decorated with the same pretentious décor as the rest of Rigatoni’s mansion - the obligatory massive desk in front of a bay window and expensive artwork on the walls.  
  
The only thing missing is a place for him to hide and the sniper has to think of a plan B very quickly when he hears a key turn in the lock. So Bucky just takes three steps sideways, positioning himself behind the open door when Natalia and Antonio walk into the room. The Italian is paying too much attention to the redhead to notice Bucky's presence and he doesn’t need to remain out of sight for very long.  
  
“Oh, your office is lovely.”  
  
“Not as lovely as you,” Antonio replies. There’s a rustle of fabric as he leans forward to kiss Natalia, Bucky's imagination filling in the blanks, and he bites back a smirk when a loud slap echoes through the room.  
  
“What kind of woman do you think I am?” Natalia asks in picture perfect outrage. “I thought you were a gentleman, but you sir are a cad!”  
  
She stalks out of the office, heading back to the main hall to create an alibi. With the right manipulation, Donno should arrive in about five minutes to defend Natalia’s virtue and thus witness his father’s suicide. The redhead will be nothing more than an innocent caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
“Hello, Rigatoni,” Bucky purrs. He comes up behind the other man and shoves the door closed while Antonio is still staring after Natalia in shock. The Italian spins around, his shout of alarm turning into a squeak as the sniper wraps a hand around his throat.  
  
“You broke a promise to some very deadly people,” he informs Rigatoni. “And they’ve decided that they want your life in trade.”  
  
Bucky rarely speaks with his targets – he’s a sniper for a reason – and the abject terror on the Italian’s face puts a bad taste in his mouth. While Antonio Rigatoni is a bastard and a lecher, that doesn't mean he deserves to be murdered in his house. However, sympathy has no place on one of Hydra's missions so Bucky buries that emotion deep inside and lets the Soldier reign. The sniper did things he wasn't proud of during the war because they were necessary and now he has to do this for Stevie and for their daughter's sake.  
  
“You’re going to kill yourself today,” the sergeant continues, dragging Antonio toward his desk as the other man struggles fruitlessly. “Hanging is traditional but also unreliable and you seem the type for drama, so… yep, here we are.”  
  
He pulls a gun from the top drawer of the desk. An old World War II pistol like Bucky hasn't seen in decades, his old tool a rich man's dear antique. But it's loaded and it's functional, well-preserved just like the sniper and it seems fitting that this weapon should kill its master now.  
  
So the sergeant pushes Antonio into his chair and forces the gun into his hand. His left, of course, since he's been watching the Italian all evening for a reason and that would be an amateur mistake.  
  
Bucky claps his hand over Antonio's mouth when someone pounds on the office door, Donno Rigatoni right on time and in a jealous rage. As the kid curses in Italian, the sergeant brings the gun up to his target face. The man tries to resist, but he's not a soldier and he can't stand against the strength of Bucky's metal arm; he can only struggle fruitlessly as the barrel of the pistol clacks against his teeth.  
  
“Open your mouth or I'll kill Donno too,” the sniper murmurs and after one last escape attempt, Antonio complies. Bucky guides the gun into his target's mouth and then kneels down at his side.  
  
“Goodbye,” he whispers, covering his eyes. When the pistol fires, the sound of the shot is deafening and when the sniper looks up, the other man is dead. Very, very dead, the back of his head now a ruined mess of blood.  
  
Bucky releases Antonio's hand, letting his arm fall naturally. He examines the scene for a moment to ensure that it looks properly suicidal and then climbs out the window. The sergeant is on the roof in thirty seconds, dodging the cameras as he scuttles to the other side of the mansion and makes his way down to the street.  
  
The sniper reaches his safehouse without incident, closing the door behind him and then walking into the bathroom where he falls to his knees and retches 'til it hurts. Bucky hasn't had such a bad reaction to a job in years. He's become a master at dissociation from his targets and he usually only whimpers in his dreams. But something about this mission has clawed its way beneath his skin and it takes more effort than it should to pull the mask back up again.  
  
Eventually Bucky drags himself to his feet and looks at his reflection in the mirror. After more than three decades in the Red Room, the sniper only looks a few years older than the boy on Zola's train. But his eyes are dark and tired, like black bruises on his face.  
  
Bucky feels like a bruise these days, exhaustion carved deep into his bones, and he doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to continue before he finally breaks.  
  
“Yasha? Are you here?”  
  
“Yes, Natashen’ka. One moment.”  
  
The sergeant runs the sink for a minute to cover his tracks and then goes out to meet Natalia. She's already removed her dress, replacing the eye-catching outfit with the standard Hydra black, but her smile is just as blinding on its own.  
  
“We did it, Yasha. My first real mission.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You don't sound very pleased,” the redhead says, her smile dimming as she looks at him quizzically. “I thought it was a success; did I do something wrong? I followed my training.”  
  
“That you did, Natasha. That you did,” Bucky tells her with a bitter laugh. This is as good a time as any to complete Grebenshchikov's other mission, although the words that burst from Bucky's mouth are truer than he'd planned. “We just killed some idiot for Hydra and the Red Room, why the Hell would I be happy? I used to fight Hydra, did you know that? I did my best to burn them into ashes but they got me anyway. For fuck’s sake, Natasha, you’re seventeen. You should be in school or working instead of planning assassinations; you deserve so much better than this life.”  
  
Natalia doesn't say anything. For once, the sergeant has taken her completely by surprise. But he's on a roll now and he doesn't require a reply.  
  
“This life is Hell. Can't you see that? We're doing the dirty work of monsters and following orders will be no excuse when we have to settle up. There's red in my ledger, Natashen'ka, red enough to drown us both in an endless sea of blood. My soul is stained beyond all saving, but you don't have to share that fate. You still have time to change.”  
  
Bucky holds out a hand to his daughter and pleads with her earnestly, “Come with me, Natashen'ka. Run with me and I'll show you the world that you've been missing. We'll live as full a lifetime as we're able before Hydra hunts us down.”  
  
For one brief moment, the sniper means it. He wants Natalia to say yes and damn the consequences even though he knows that Grebenshchikov is listening. He wants to know that he's done right by his daughter and he can't help a stab of regret when she slowly shakes her head.  
  
“I can't do that, Yasha.”  
  
“No, of course not,” Bucky replies, his lips twisting bitterly. “Survive at any cost, that's what I told you, and we've both learned that lesson well. Congratulations on your training, Natasha; our masters will be proud.”  
  
Although this was the outcome that he wanted – the only one that would keep Natalia breathing – it seems a hollow victory when she's still trapped in Hell. And there's one more test, isn't there? She'll have to betray him one more time before it's done and he doesn't know whether to hope that his daughter is truly heartless or hope that she'll fail and die instead.  
  
“What is going on, Yasha?” Natalia asks, eyeing the sergeant warily when he's been silent for too long. “You are acting very strange.”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“Don't li-”  
  
“Leave it, Natalia!” Bucky growls and the lack of a diminutive knocks her back a step. He never calls her Natalia. It's always Natashen'ka or Natasha when they're alone and Subject 11 when Grebenshchikov is watching, and the sergeant feels even guiltier at the flash of hurt that flickers on her face. But she drops the subject and that's all he wants right now.  
  
“It's nothing. Just a foolish flight of fancy,” the sniper continues more quietly. “Get on the radio and call in the codes for a successful mission. I need to change before the extraction team gets here.”  
  
Once his daughter makes the call, they spend the next three hours sitting in awkward silence, uncomfortable enough that Bucky leaps to his feet when someone finally knocks on the door. He lets the team inside and submits to the usual procedure without argument. But when the sergeant wakes up, he's in a cryo-tube instead of the usual laboratory and his left arm is hanging limp and useless at his side.  
  
“Hello, Soldier.”  
  
Bucky looks up to see Grebenshchikov standing on the other side of the glass and a chill goes through him when the doctor grins. Something strange is going on here and strange is never good where Hydra is concerned.  
  
“I apologize for the accommodations but Subject 11 has told us something interesting,” the doctor says, waving his right hand. At the motion, Natalia walks forward with two of the Red Room's most lethal assets at her side. “Would you care to repeat your statement, 11? Or should I call you Natashen’ka as the Winter Soldier does? It's a cute name, I admit, though you'll have one better soon.”  
  
“I told them that you completed your mission but they asked if you were loyal,” Natalia tells the sergeant. Although, her face is blank, she won’t meet Bucky’s eyes and her voice wavers slightly as she speaks. “You wanted us to run and I had to tell them. Didn’t I?”  
  
She seems so uncertain that Bucky just wants to comfort her. This may be a betrayal but it’s one he orchestrated and the sniper has no right to judge his daughter after everything he’s done.  
  
“It’s all right, Natasha,” Bucky tells her gently, smiling at Natalia when she finally looks up. “Grebenshchikov is well aware of my hatred for him and our masters never ask a question without knowing what they want. You did the only thing you could to stay alive.”  
  
“Yes, Subject 11. You did well,” Grebenshchikov agrees. “You have passed your final test and earned your place as one of Hydra's most dangerous assets. With the Black Widow on our side, the Winter Soldier can finally sleep for good.”  
  
“What? No!” the sergeant shouts in horror. As much as he hates this life, the Russian has to need him. As soon as Grebenshchikov stops needing Bucky, then he loses all his leverage. There's nothing to stop Hydra from killing the sniper and his captain for the secrets in their blood.  
  
So Bucky tears at his bindings, ripping his right arm free to bang against the glass. If he’s going to die then he’d rather go down fighting but the ice is already creeping through his bones. He can only gasp for breath as the glass frosts over and blocks out Natalia’s horrified expression bit by bit. Clearly she didn’t expect this outcome any more than he did and the sniper holds onto that thought for consolation as the dark takes hold again.

 


	13. To Gamble

Natalia defects in 2009 and Bucky has never been more proud. He's so proud he wants to cry when Grebenshchikov orders him to take his daughter out.  
  
No one leaves the Red Room and no one leaves Hydra without deadly consequences. The Winter Soldier is woken up after eight long years just to send this message, to prove that no one – not even the Black Widow – can escape.  
  
He doesn't storm SHIELD to find her, although he probably could. Grebenshchikov isn't ready to burn his double agents there.  
  
Instead the doctor hands Bucky a file detailing Natalia's next mission. She will be protecting a Ukrainian scientist defecting to the US – one Ivan Shevchenko that Hydra wants to die – and the Winter Soldier will make his masters doubly proud by removing both of them en route. Of course, knowing his daughter, the sniper would have been forced to go through Natalia in order to kill her target anyway.  
  
The Winter Soldier waits on top of a cliff three days later, watching through binoculars for the redhead's car. She covered her tracks well, switching vehicles half a dozen times before getting to this point. But such preparations matter little when Hydra has eyes in every city and this is the only road that she can take to reach her goal in time.  
  
Indeed, Bucky has been waiting for less than an hour when the car arrives. There’s another agent driving, probably one of SHIELD’s, but the sniper can see his daughter sitting in the backseat and he knows that Shevchenko will be hidden out of sight.  
  
So Bucky trades out his binoculars for his sniper rifle and starts to pick the perfect shot. The windows of Natalia's car aren't bulletproof – they don't reflect the light correctly – and even if they were, it wouldn't matter. Her driver has his window rolled down about three inches and that's two inches more than Bucky needs.  
  
He adjusts his aim half an inch to the left and then fires, his bullet striking the other man right above the ear. The agent pitches to the left, the car veering toward the ocean even as Natalia lunges for the wheel.  
  
She almost makes it, the vehicle swerving wildly across the highway as she fights for control. But then the front tire slams into the guardrail and the metal tears like tissue paper, sending Natalia and her mission plummeting off the cliff. However, Bucky knows the Black Widow won't die that easily and shooting the driver was only the first stage of his plan.  
  
So the sniper looks up from his rifle and picks up the detonator lying next to him. He covers his eyes as the explosive charges he laid earlier go off and large chunks of rock slide down to block the road.  
  
When the dust finally settles, Bucky sees that Natalia has clawed her way back to the pavement and brought Shevchenko with her, the scientist lying in a huddle at her side. She snaps to her feet, pulling out her pistol and scanning the horizon warily.  
  
Watching through his scope, Bucky can see the moment his daughter realizes that she has no options, her facing taking on the same stubborn look Steve used to get when contemplating suicide. There's nowhere to run now that the sergeant has blocked the highway and even if Natalia calls for backup, SHIELD won't arrive in time. All the redhead can do is try to protect her mission with her own body as Bucky calmly lines up another shot.  
  
This bullet hits Natalia in the abdomen, passing through her cleanly to strike his target in the heart. She screams then, one high shriek of agony that pierces Bucky to the bone. But the sound cuts off quickly, his daughter refusing to show weakness even as she drops to her knees.  
  
Bucky could kill her now. One more shot would end her life for good.  
  
But his daughter deserves better than a sniper's bullet. If he's going to take Natalia's life then he should look her in the eye. They'll be no hiding from this mission, no pretending about what he's done this time.  
  
So the sergeant slings his rifle over his shoulder and jumps down to the road. He blocks Natalia's first bullet with his arm and dodges the second before tearing the pistol from her hand. Two knives, another gun, and a fancy Taser follow, the redhead trying to gouge out his eyes with her fingernails before he finally pins her down.  
  
Bucky takes out his revolver and presses the barrel against Natalia's forehead, ripping off his mask with his other hand.  
  
“You?!” the redhead snarls, her eyes widening in recognition. “I thought you were _dead_. I thought they'd killed you but it was just another _test_ , wasn't it? All that talk about hating Hydra and escaping was a lie. But _I_ did it; _I_ got out. So go ahead and kill me, you fucking coward. I'd rather die than be a dog like you”  
  
Natalia glares at Bucky, holding his gaze as he starts to pull the trigger. The sergeant means to kill her, he really does. Paint her blood and brains across the pavement just like his masters asked.  
  
But when he gets to the point of no return, Bucky simply... can't.  
  
He can't pull the trigger, not when his daughter is looking at him with such a mix of fear and fury. Not when she's the only good thing that Hydra ever made. The only bit of Steve and Bucky left within the world.  
  
The sergeant holsters his gun and draws a knife; if he can't shoot Natalia then maybe he can slit her throat instead. But even that fails, the point of his dagger landing in the dirt.  
  
“Fuck,” Bucky curses flatly before leaning over and cutting a swath of fabric from Shevchenko's coat. He slices the garment into strips to create a makeshift bandage, covering Natalia's wound and then tying it in place.  
  
“It's a through and through. You'll be all right until your friends arrive.”  
  
“Why?” his daughter asks and Bucky doesn't know what to tell her. How can he explain when he isn't sure what stayed his hand and 'By the way, I'm actually your father' would not go over well? Even if Natalia believed him, she doesn't need that kind of burden when she's trying to leave her past behind.  
  
“I need a messenger,” the sergeant says instead. “Do you trust SHIELD?”  
  
“I trust Barton and Fury,” Natalia replies and that has to be enough. He cannot kill his daughter so he will have to trust her. Maybe this is the opportunity that he's been waiting for; he can't risk getting stuck back in deep freeze forever before he gets Steve out.  
  
“Ask them... No, tell them that Captain America never died. Tell them that he's been imprisoned by the Red Room since the forties and they're getting close to cracking the secrets in his blood. If SHIELD doesn't want their agents facing an army of supersoldiers then Fury has to help me. We have to save Steve now.”  
  
Bucky's voice cracks on the last word, a hint of desperation seeping out. “Please Natashen’ka; I don't want to do this anymore.”  
  
“Oh my God. You're James Barnes,” his daughter whispers in sudden recognition. She actually sounds surprised, which means she's probably shocked as hell. “How did I never notice? Barton and Coulson talk about you and your captain constantly. You went MIA in 1945, a Russian double agent according to SHIELD's sources, but there were never charges filed. Carter and Stark wouldn't allow it without proof. But you were, weren't you? You've been with Hydra all this time.”  
  
“Not willingly. Never willingly, though I suppose that hardly matters now,” the sniper replies, rubbing one hand across his face. “I've never lied to you, Natashen'ka, not when I had a choice. I wanted to run in Italy, I really did, but Hydra has my captain and I can’t leave him behind.”  
  
“You expect me to believe that?”  
  
“Yes. I do. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. If I planned to bring you back to Hydra, I would have shot you with a tranquilizer instead of a bullet, and if this were a plot to take down SHIELD, I would have picked a story that actually sounded plausible.”  
  
“All right then. Say I tell them. What do you expect to happen afterward?” his daughter asks, smiling faintly when Bucky can't quite hide his surprise. “I owe you a debt. In fact, I seem to owe you several and it's not like I'd mind seeing our former masters burn in Hell. So tell me exactly what you think SHIELD can do against the Red Room when no one knows its location, not even me?”  
  
“I taught you a lot, Natasha, but I didn't teach you everything. While I don't know the exact location of the Red Room, I can get you within about two miles and I should be able to bring down its defenses. Most of them anyway. What I need is an exit once I get my captain out. I need you to fly Steve home to safety before launching an attack.”  
  
“Then give me the coordinates.”  
  
“No, not until I have Fury's guarantee. If SHIELD attacks too soon, Grebenshchikov will kill Steve long before your friends can reach him. We need to coordinate.”  
  
“And how, exactly, am I supposed to contact you once I've passed your message on?”  
  
“Oh, that's easy,” Bucky says with a shrug. “I'll call you.”  
  
“Are you crazy?”  
  
“Probably,” the sergeant admits. “But Hydra doesn't watch me on my missions anymore. Next time they wake me up, I'll steal a phone and call you. If Fury has agreed to my terms, we can make our plan from there.”  
  
“I'll do my best to sway him but I can't make any guarantees,” Natalia warns the sniper. She looks like she wants to argue further but her strength is fading quickly as the adrenalin wears off. “You have two years to call 510-765-1288. Any longer and I'll assume the deal is off. Try not to die beforehand; I'd never live that down.”  
  
“Don't worry, Natashen'ka. The Devil isn't done with me,” Bucky tells her, lips twisting sardonically. “Just be careful who you talk to; Hydra has more agents than you think.”  
  
With that, the sniper leaves his daughter on the road next to Shevchenko's body and hikes back out to his extraction point. He tells his contact that the mission has been successful and fifteen hours later, he wakes up to Grebenshchikov screaming in his face.  
  
“The Black Widow isn't dead, Soldier! You said that she was dead!”  
  
“She should be dead. I made the shot. She went over a cliff with Shevchenko and I found no sign of either target in the ocean afterward,” Bucky tells the Russian as calmly as he can. If the other man doesn't believe him then he's dead and Natalia will be waiting for a call that never comes. “Send me back and I'll do better. I'll slit her throat next time.”  
  
“No, Soldier; I need your skills to contain a new situation. Someone else will take her out,” Grebenshchikov tells the sniper, his rage disappearing as quickly as it came. The doctor has always tended toward practicality rather than fits of temper and because Bucky has killed friends and allies and total strangers without flinching, that's the end of that.

 


	14. To Drown

Bucky steals a stranger's phone in Chechnya on his way to kill a general; it rings six times before Natalia picks up.  
  
“Talk to me, Natashen'ka,” the sergeant orders in lieu of greeting. “I could use good news right now.”  
  
“Sorry, Yasha. Fury won't send a strike team onto Russian soil. Not without more proof than you can offer. And not when you require utter secrecy. But he'll allow Barton and I to lead a pickup; it's minimal risk for the chance to have Captain America as a game piece on the board. I wish I could have done more but we'd need at least three strike teams to lead a real assault.”  
  
“Probably more than that. But you've done enough, Natasha. Thank you. Rescuing Steve has always been my first priority and I’ll try to do as much damage as I can on my way out.”  
  
“Sounds good. Kill a few for me.”  
  
Bucky gives Natalia the general coordinates and she promises to be there within twenty-four hours, one of SHIELD’s stealth jets waiting on standby.  
  
“It’ll be a slim window. But this mission includes intelligence so Grebenshchikov will want a briefing before sending me back to cryo. I should be able to take him out and get to Steve before they realize something’s wrong.”  
  
“What’s the signal? We won’t be able to offer backup, but I want to be ready in case you come in hot.”  
  
“Trust me, Natasha. That shouldn’t be a problem. While I’ll try to send an open broadcast, the explosions should be pretty obvious even if I can't.”  
  
They iron out a few more details before Bucky signs off to complete his mission, the general interrogated and then executed once he can’t talk anymore. Afterward, the sniper sends one last text to Natalia before tossing his stolen phone in a trashcan and heading back to his safehouse to be extracted out.  
  
Just as the sergeant had expected, Grebenshchikov wants to know every detail of his mission, dragging Bucky into the briefing room as soon as he wakes up. But the scientist’s impatience is the sniper’s gain this time.  
  
He still has full use of his left arm since it's only deactivated right before he's sent to cryo and his handlers have left him most of his mission gear as well. They’ve gotten sloppy and complacent and while they weren’t stupid enough to let Bucky keep his weapons, he’ll be glad for the body armor once the shooting starts.  
  
Once he's finished with his report, Bucky demands the chance to visit Steve before he's frozen, refusing to move until Grebenshchikov agrees. This is less risky than it sounds since the doctor has always preferred to take the path of least resistance; it reduces his expenses when Bucky follows willingly.  
  
The scientist is used to obedience. The entire Red Room is used to Bucky doing exactly what he's told and he takes them by surprise when he attacks instead.  
  
Bucky makes his move as soon as Grebenshchikov stops in front of the entrance to Steve's cryo-chamber. His first punch breaks the camera and he has all of Hydra’s soldiers on the floor less than sixty seconds later, their necks broken, crushed, and cracked from slamming headfirst into the wall.  
  
“What are you doing?!” Grebenshchikov shrieks. The scientist is too angry to even think of running; instead he pulls a small device out of pocket and jams it into Bucky's metal hand. There's a click and then a crackle of electricity sends the sniper to his knees, his left arm falling limply to his side.  
  
Bucky blinks away the aftershocks to see Grebenshchikov sneering down at him like the sergeant hasn't just killed his guards in seconds, like his attempt to fight is nothing but a tantrum doomed to fail. The doctor is smirking as though the sniper isn't dangerous without the weapon Hydra gave him and that's the mistake that Bucky has been waiting for.  
  
The sergeant lunges forward, grabbing Grebenshchikov's wrist and twisting when the other man tries to zap him down again. He shoves the scientist off balance and they fall to the floor, Bucky's teeth buried in his former master's neck.  
  
The gush of blood is hot and salty on his tongue and he spits out a chunk of flesh as he sits back up again. The other man is frozen, his eyes wide with utter disbelief. He barely moves as Bucky reboots his arm and then strikes the doctor in the chest to end this fight for good.  
  
“You... how could you...?” Grebenshchikov chokes out as the light fades from his eyes. There are a thousand things that the sergeant wants to say to him, a thousand curses to lay upon his head, but he doesn't have a chance to speak before the Russian breathes his last. He dies too easy, without facing justice for even a fraction of the horrors that he did in Hydra's name.  
  
However, Bucky doesn't have time to mourn his lost chance at vengeance. So the sniper just mutters, “Good riddance, asshole,” before dragging the scientist's corpse up off the ground.  
  
Grebenshchikov is still warm and when the sergeant presses his hand against the door lock, the sensor finds no difference between that and living flesh. Instead it simply beeps acknowledgment and lets him enter the room where Steve is held. Once inside, Bucky drops the Russian on the floor and moves to the control panel, entering the code that he worked so hard to find. The computer flashes green and then begins the thawing process, the cryo-tube hissing softly as the glass defrosts.  
  
Bucky knows he should be watching the door, but he can’t tear his eyes off Stevie. The sergeant has missed him for so long; he’s loved him for so long and he knows that he won’t be there when his best friend finally wakes.  
  
So the sniper allows himself this moment. He steps forward when the cryo-tube slides open and pulls Steve into his arms. It’s like coming home, the world settling into place now that friend is here and breathing, still alive after everything that Grebenshchikov has done. Alive and heavy, and Bucky is forced to lay the blond down on the floor when his right arm starts to ache. Steve is still unconscious and he’s a bit much to carry as nothing but dead weight.  
  
However, the sergeant has a solution to that problem. It won’t be pretty but no one is grading him on style; all that matters is getting Steve to Natalia before Hydra runs him down.  
  
So Bucky walks over to the nearest shelf and grabs a tarp to lay out on the floor – two things the Red Room has no shortage of are tarps and plastic sheeting. He wraps Steve up like he’s transporting any other body and then pulls this package over to the door. The plastic coating lets the tarp slide easily across the concrete floor.  
  
Once Steve is out of the way, the sergeant takes his metal arm to the control panels, doing his level best to ensure that the cryo-chamber can’t be used again. He reduces the equipment to scrap and jagged metal without even breathing hard, crushing the last few chunks of glass beneath his boots just before alarms start blaring from the walls.  
  
“Shit,” Bucky curses. He thought he’d have a little more time before someone noticed he was missing, but maybe the Red Room was monitoring Grebenshchikov’s vital signs.  
  
Speaking of the Russian, the sergeant strips the weapons from the guards still in the hallway – four pistols, two Tasers, a shotgun, and a jagged combat knife – and quickly hacks off the scientist’s right hand. It’s a gruesome business but he’s not sure how many locks in this place are biometric and he’d rather have the key if he needs it later on. Then he ties the doctor's hand to his belt and pulls out one of his borrowed pistols before wrapping metal fingers around his package and pulling Steve into the hall.  
  
No one is there but Bucky keeps his guard up anyway as he breaks into a run. Although dragging his captain is a little awkward in the beginning, the extra weight throwing his stride off balance, the sniper finds his rhythm soon enough.  
  
Bucky sprints full speed through the hallways, the few guards he encounters taken out with a bullet on the fly. A few of them get shots off but nothing he can’t handle; most bounce off his metal arm or slam into his combat vest. Sure it hurts like a bitch, but the sergeant's broken ribs heal quickly and most of the soldiers are too surprised by his refusal to die to shoot a second time.  
  
Even with this incompetence working in his favor, Bucky needs to reach the main security control room as quickly as he can. Some of the Red Room’s assassins can nearly fight him to a standstill and while he doesn't know if any of those agents are in house, enough low level flunkies working together could still bring him down.  
  
Surprise will only keep his enemies off balance for so long. Indeed, someone in this base clearly has a brain since Bucky rounds the last corner and has to drop to the ground to avoid a sudden spray of gunfire aimed directly at his head. The bullets are followed by a flashbang and the sergeant throws an arm over his face to keep from being blinded as he slides across the floor.  
  
Once the light fades, Bucky sees a dozen soldiers guarding the control room. They’ve got riot shields and full body armor so that he can’t shoot them and at their head is asset Kosti, Perov’s favorite thug.  
  
The sergeant’s momentum carries him toward the soldiers, bullets and concrete shrapnel leaving bloody lines across his face. But he dodges the worst of it and when the bundle containing Steve snaps around the corner after him, inspiration hits. If he can’t take out his enemies with bullets then he needs a battering ram and Captain America always was a fan of charging down the line.  
  
So the sniper waits until Steve has reached the apex of his turn and then lets go, the other man hurtling toward Hydra’s soldiers at full speed.  
  
“What the fuck?” one of them curses harshly as Bucky bowls a perfect strike, his makeshift missile smashing into their line dead center. The impact knocks his enemies off balance, the wall of riot shields fracturing into chaos, and the sniper quickly empties one of his guns into the fray.  
  
He pulls out his shotgun as Kosti rushes toward him, the other man relying on speed and strength rather than strategy. His knife lodges in the sergeant’s side as he dodges the first blast of Bucky’s shotgun – the two men behind him aren’t so lucky – but he’s not expecting a Taser to the face. The bastard goes down twitching and Bucky dives over the body as another wave of bullets cuts through the air where he had been.  
  
The motion turns the knife buried in his side into a line of agony and the sergeant’s blows are a little more vicious than required as he clears the hall. When the last man dies, Bucky pulls out Kosti’s dagger, pressing a hand to his wound before leaning down to slit the other asset’s throat.  
  
The sniper gives himself thirty seconds to stop bleeding and then moves to pick up Steve. He digs the other man out of a pile of riot shields and corpses, adding a few more weapons to his arsenal along the way. Steve seems to be no worse for wear and while the tarp he's wrapped in is starting to look a little frayed around the edges, it still slides easily enough when Bucky drags the other man to the control room door.  
  
This lock is also biometric so the sergeant leaves Steve off to one side and pulls Grebenshchikov’s hand free of his belt. It takes three tries for the Russian’s prints to register and then the door slides open with a quiet beep. The sound is barely audible above the alarms that are still blaring but it’s enough to warn the men inside and Bucky’s entrance is greeted by a solid wall of lead.  
  
Of course, the sniper’s not an idiot so he wasn’t standing in the doorway. Instead he’s crouched on the floor with his pistol ready, a flashbang of his own ensuring that none of his enemies manage a second volley before his bullets find their mark.  
  
One shot. One target. Six men dead in 30 thirty seconds and that includes the time it takes for the smoke to clear the room.  
  
Bucky drags Steve inside, letting the door slide shut afterwards. He has no way to keep Hydra out – if that was possible, he never would have gotten the door open in the first place – so he just works efficiently. The sergeant moves from control panel to control panel, doing his best to wreak havoc on his enemies.  
  
He begins with the radio, setting the system to broadcast out the compound's coordinates on every channel so that Natalia will know the time has come. While he waits for a reply, Bucky pulls up the Red Room's intercom. The sniper orders all assets to the western laboratory, claiming that the Winter Soldier has been marked for execution and is now hiding there. After so many decades listening to Grebenshchikov's fucking speeches, Bucky has the Russian's accent down to a science and Hydra's goons have always been obedient.  
  
The sergeant can see them on the cameras, running through the hallways just like he wants them to. One or two might wonder about this sudden change in orders, but most would never dare to question a command and these men run willingly into the sniper's trap.  
  
Although the Red Room isn't actually full of death machines like some supervillain's lair, Grebenshchikov built safety measures into everything he touched. A few simple commands and blast doors start slamming shut all throughout the Red Room, isolating Bucky's enemies and leaving his own escape route clear.  
  
By now, Natalia has pinged back to say she's coming so the sergeant moves over to the weapon's console and starts setting missile timers. No one does paranoia quite like Hydra and there's an entire array of weapons at the ready in case some unlucky soul wanders into the wrong airspace. Bucky could probably shoot Natalia down in seconds despite SHIELD's countermeasures, but instead he locks all the missiles on their own coordinates. Although the console screams at him, the sniper just overrides it; ten minutes from now, this base is going boom.  
  
Once the countdown begins, Bucky grabs Steve in a fireman's carry and starts sprinting toward the surface, speed more important than keeping his gun hand unoccupied. He reaches the garage with five minutes to spare, throwing his captain over the back of an ATV and then gunning it toward the door.  
  
When the sniper looks back, the door has sealed shut behind him, leaving nothing but a small bunker to show that Hydra's base is there. Bucky has never seen the outside of the Red Room before this moment and he can't help thinking that the door to Hell should look much more impressive. The ground itself should have been stained scarlet from all the blood that place has spilled. But then again, Hydra's greatest strength has always been its ability to blend in with its surroundings; Bucky knows that well.  
  
So the sergeant turns away and picks up the ATV's radio to send out a broadcast. “Natalia? Can you hear me? I've gotten out.”  
  
“Loud and clear, Yasha. Congratulations,” is the reply. “We'll meet you in the forest to the west.”  
  
Bucky follows her directions, redlining his engine the whole way. He's almost to the trees when the ground beneath his wheels suddenly shifts sideways, a wave of sound washing over him. The missiles that he armed are detonating and while the sergeant isn't stupid enough to think he's finished Hydra, he's struck a blow that they'll remember. His former masters will remember the day they lost the Winter Soldier and the loss of Captain America will be a worse injury yet.  
  
The sniper ducks low over his handlebars when a bullet skims his shoulder; apparently some of Hydra's soldiers made it out alive. So Bucky revs the engine one more time, weaving around a tree and then skidding to a stop in front of Natalia. His daughter is waiting for him by a small stealth airplane, a man with a bow and arrow standing on the ramp.  
  
“Agent Barton, I presume?” the sergeant asks as he gets off the ATV and slings Steve over his shoulder with a grunt. “Didn't anyone ever tell you that bows are out of date?”  
  
“I don't know. Did anyone ever tell you that metal arms are tacky, Mr. Winter Soldier?” the other man retorts. “Or should I call you Bucky Barnes?”  
  
“Call me whatever the fuck you want,” Bucky replies. “As long as you can fly that plane.”  
  
Barton opens his mouth to say something, probably another snarky comment, but before he can, Natalia interrupts.  
  
“Measure your dicks later, boys,” the redhead orders. “We've got incoming and the package is our first priority.”  
  
She's right, of course. So Bucky passes Steve over to Barton without any further comments, hovering at the archer's elbow until he's certain that the other man won't fall. Barton does stagger slightly as he turns to enter the plane but he manages to keep his feet as he carries Steve inside. It hurts to let him go; truthfully the sight makes Bucky nauseous and he turns to his daughter to stop himself from reaching out.  
  
“Steve should wake up in about three days and he'll be confused as Hell,” the sniper tells her. “But when you explain what happened, don't tell him about me. Say you rescued him on your own if you have to tell him anything. Promise me, Natasha. Promise me that you'll keep silent while protecting Steve from everyone who might want to harm him, no matter who they are. If you truly feel you owe me, then pay your debt like this.”  
  
“I will,” she swears, one hand across her heart. “He won’t know the truth until you wish it and I’ll see that he survives. But you should come with us, Yasha. SHIELD can wipe your record clean.”  
  
He lets himself imagine it for a second. He lets himself imagine being there when Steve wakes up. But there's too much blood on his hands; he's killed too many innocents to protect his best friend's life. Some things can never be forgiven and Bucky crossed the line of no return a long, long time ago.  
  
“No, Natashen'ka, it's much too late for that. If you see me again, shoot first; I'll be there to kill you and I won't stop again. Now go. I'll cover your retreat.”  
  
“Goodbye my friend,” Natalia says before running to the plane. The door slides shut behind her and the engines start up just as the first of Hydra’s soldiers appears amongst the trees.  
  
“Stop them!” someone shouts, pointing at the plane. He hefts an RPG onto his shoulder and so Bucky shoots him first, the resulting explosion killing another three. The sniper shoots until his gun is empty, keeping the survivors of the Red Room too busy to think about Natalia’s plane until it’s disappeared.  
  
When his second pistol clicks empty, the sergeant throws out his last flashbang to buy himself some time. He only has one clip remaining but he doesn’t try to run or get back on his ATV after he reloads; Bucky simply points his gun at his own head. He always knew that he wasn’t getting out of Russia and now that Steve is free, Hydra doesn't get to keep the Winter Soldier anymore. However, before the sniper pulls the trigger, his left arm clicks warningly.  
  
“Shit!” Bucky curses as his arm suddenly shuts off. He drops his gun, twisting awkwardly to catch the weapon before it hits the ground.  
  
By now Hydra's soldiers have recovered from the flashbang so Bucky shoots the closest man for good measure before pointing his pistol back at his own head. But then he's tackled from behind, the impact knocking the sniper off his feet.  
  
Bucky loses his gun in the ensuing struggle as Hydra’s men jump on him and while he puts several out of commission, it’s a losing fight. The sniper is off balance without his metal arm, off balance and still bleeding, and his enemies eventually overwhelm him with sheer numbers as his strength starts to fade. They shove his face down in the dirt and cuff his wrists together, three men sitting on his shoulders in order to keep him down.  
  
“You’ve caused quite a mess with your little tantrum,” someone says. A pair of boots stops by Bucky’s head and when the sniper looks up, he sees Alexei Perov standing there. “They tell me you killed Grebenshchikov and many of our soldiers, but the Red Room won’t fall that easily. Because you didn’t kill me, did you? I was at a meeting with our leaders and I’ve only now returned.”  
  
“You always were a lucky bastard,” Bucky says, giving the other man a bloody smile. “But I’m done cooperating. Next time I’ll kill you first.”  
  
“No, Soldier, you will not,” Perov corrects, staring at the sniper with cold eyes. “Grebenshchikov preferred assets who could think but Grebenshchikov is gone now. You will be broken to obedience like the worthless dog you are. In fact, I believe you will be the perfect test subject for the machine I’ve been designing, something to replace all those stubborn morals with Hydra’s memories.”  
  
Bucky jerks against his bonds, trying to make the bastard kill him now. But the sergeant's efforts are completely futile and he's quickly knocked unconscious when Perov signals to his men.  
  
The sergeant wakes up in a chair. Not just a chair, something out of a mad doctor’s nightmare. The straps around his arms and legs are cutting off his circulation and he can barely breathe beneath the band across his chest.  
  
“Good. You’re awake,” someone says and then the world explodes.  
  
Every muscle spasms as lightning arcs through Bucky’s body and turns his thoughts to ash. Because the agony doesn’t end, it just grows stronger, lines of fire burning through his mind. Perov is shouting orders, shouting to be heard above the screaming that the sergeant can’t hold back. He struggles until his bonds are bleeding but he can’t escape the words or the pain that guides them. Perov carves him into pieces, ripping out everything that makes him Bucky inch by inch.  
  
There’s no relief until the sniper finally shatters, defiance drowning underneath the weight of agony. Perov scours his mind clean and when his master beckons, it’s the Winter Soldier who drops down to his knees.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The working title of this fic was "Sacrificing Bucky." Do with that what you will.


	15. To Wake

The mission is everything; the mission is his life. The Winter Soldier is a weapon and a weapon never questions. A weapon does as ordered and he is the very best of Hydra's arsenal. So he wakes and he tracks and he always kills his targets before returning to the pit from whence he came.  
  
He returns to the ice, to the chair, and to the chamber that makes his muscles tremble with a bone deep terror. But even as his instincts scream with panic, the Winter Soldier never fights his handlers. Their orders give him purpose and a weapon is nothing without purpose. The Winter Soldier is nothing until the man on the bridge calls him by someone else's name.  
  
He knows this man. He knows this man and something deeper than his orders screams _'Protect'_.  
  
The Winter Soldier's handlers tell him that the man on the bridge is his mission and the words echo loudly in his mind. The man on the bridge must ~~die~~ _survive_. He has to ~~kill~~ protect ~~the target~~ his mission from being harmed.  
  
But his orders are not right. His orders say that Captain America must die.  
  
 ~~Captain Ameri~~...Ste-... ~~Capt~~ is the target. Track him and ~~remove~~ **protect!**   Threats must be eliminated. ~~Cold~~ ~~bullies~~ ~~soldiers~~ ~~handlers~~ Hydra wants ~~Stev~~ his mission dead. The mission is protect. But the Winter Soldier is Hydra. The Winter Soldier is the threat.  
  
He must be eliminated. But ~~Steve~~ the mission trusts ~~SHIELD~~ Hydra; he will not ~~watch his back~~ survive. ALL danger must destroyed. SHIELD is Hydra. Hydra is the threat. The Winter Soldier will protect.  
  
“He is my mission.”  
  
The handlers smile and then they bleed, his metal fist cracking bones and teeth. The weapon has a ~~new~~ ~~old~~ single purpose and they are an obstruction. He will not be stopped. He will burn ~~SHIELD~~ ~~Hydra~~ the world to ashes if he must. First the handlers. Then Hydra. Then ~~the asset~~ himself. He will kill the monsters in the dark.  
  
Because ~~the mission~~ Steve is everything; ~~the mission~~ Stevie is his life.  
  
  
 _End_  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. I didn’t exactly mean to lie about the happy ending (and I still think there's some potential), but the events of Civil War made what I had planned out seem so much f**king worse. Even if I’d been thinking about continuing, I don’t think I could. I swear the next fic should be much happier.


End file.
